In the wee small hours

 

Image: abc.net.au

Why do only demons seem to come out at night?

I fell asleep around 10 last night and woke up around 2:15 this morning.

OK, there was plenty of time before the alarm went off for an early job. I could steady my brain.

And, yet? Not so much.

I tossed. I turned. I talked to the cat, who responded by jumping around the bedroom to cause enough chaos to completely wake me up completely.

The plow/sander/salt truck came by as well. That got me to take a stroll to the living room to glance out the window and see exactly what was going on with the weather.

I put my head back down, after glancing at my phone, of course. That's become the latter-day version of turning the TV on, though maybe I should go back to doing that.

Yet, I'm not sure the late-night TV offerings are to my liking anymore.

So I tried to sleep.

Think happy thoughts, right? OK, let's ponder traveling. Can't wait to do that again. Think about being in the Renegades booth.

Think about being in any booth.

Think about anything that makes me zone out.

Anything that makes me relax. I mean, that's the idea, right?

Then the demons creep back in.

Then the heart starts to race.

Then the mind begins to spin.

The happy thoughts normally get overrun by a lot of stuff. Money, stress, life.

So why do the demons win? Why can't the mind -- my mind -- go to counting sheep and, well, Pleasure Town?

Is it me?

I'm sure, to a large degree, it is me. Somehow I have to clear the mechanism, as the saying goes, and get rid of the negative elements.

I'm sure there's some zen that I'm missing or something along those lines.

But, as I sit here late in the afternoon, after another bad night and looking towards another attempt at sleeping, I ponder all of this.