So many nights in the last month have been bad.
Thinking about my situation with my parents, jet lag, time differences between Minnesota and The Netherlands, that I had to plan phone calls to get advice or to just vent about the situation, accident, possible concussion sleep loss, travel, more sleep loss, intercontinental travel, jet lag.
Then finally my own bed. Only sleep was still not right. So, I unpacked, read mail (snail mail, yes… I still get that), read the local paper to catch up on all the local Dutch news.
Listen to hubby snoring in next room and wonder if I will ever get a good nights sleep again?
The one night he got up at 3am and had tea with me and we chatted (old fashioned word for talking not new form that no one talks but typed some darn thing into a phone while the person sits on the opposite side of the room). Then he went back to bed and I continued doing anything but sleep.
My hubby calls it combat mode. He is right. When I am working on a problem I can’t fix (like many problems in my Army career) I do overtime work trying to find a solution anyway I can. Keeping busy doing small things like organizing or cleaning helps clean my head and then sometimes the solution to the huge problem appears out of thin air. It worked for me for years, maybe not normal but it works.
But, it was starting to worry me that I couldn’t shut it off once I came home and realized the issues in Minnesota may never be solved, my parents could be pissed at me and never talk to me again before they die. Sad, but true.
How can it hurt so bad and yet I can’t let it just go, and accept it and get some sleep.
Maybe, I just needed what I always needed when things in life get to be too much, a canoe or kayak paddle, and a campground.
So, we headed to our seasonal campsite at Oud Alblas. We put the canoe into the water, paddled 5 km and relaxed next to the camper until dark. I SLEPT LIKE A LOG!!
Refreshed I felt like I was 20. No drugs to help me sleep, just fresh air, Dutch farmland, a canoe paddle.
Wow- problem on many levels solved.
What do you do when you can’t sleep?
What it where was your best sleep ever?
Sweet dreams everyone from one more night in Oud Alblasđź’¤
The Cedar Journal 
When you are camping, it is possible to ‘get away from it all’. Even your pleasant home environment in the Netherlands would not do the trick. With a good night’s sleep after a vigorous paddle comes the healing of body and soul. I am so glad to hear you are feeling better. Best wishes! Peter
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What do you do when you can’t sleep? – I blog ha!
Truthfully, I rely on distance/trail running (as you have probably gathered from my posts) to give me time to think through the day’s issues and purposely exhaust my body in hopes of getting a good night’s sleep. Otherwise, I’m spending my nights in a book or in front of the keyboard watching the hands grind out the morning hours.
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