In The Wee Small Hours

I love the above song for so many reasons. But I'm quoting tonight on it because I got to thinking about those hours in the night. The ones where you wake up after being asleep for a short amount of time and you cannot turn off the synapses for whatever reason and you find yourself staring at the tv or computer screen for hours on end without feeling the least bit sleepy. Or the evenings when you know you should be getting sleepy, tired, whatever you want to call it and well, you just aren't. You pick up a book that in the past has put you to sleep within an hour and suddenly it seems pretty interesting. You try playing countless games of computer solitaire and since you're winning so handily so frequently, you suddenly don't feel like stopping. The funny thing is, you know you'll pay for this in the morning. Monday morning rolls around and you're functioning on 2 hours of sleep and you know by noon you're gonna be mush. But you just can't stop, you just can't relax, you just can't stop thinking.

In the middle of the night is when I find I miss people the most. I used to ache for my dad in the middle of the night. I miss my kids then and my brothers. I see my sister with some regularity, so I don't find I miss her much--is that bad? I even dredge up folks that I haven't seen for umpty ump years, wondering where they are, what they are doing and do they ever think of me? And if they do, is it good?

The problem with those wee small hours is you pack a lot of what-ifs, do-overs, and I-can't-believe-I-said/did/thought that. It's not usually good reflections in the middle of the night. It's usually, for me anyway, regrets and remorse. I'm whining aren't I? Well, it is after all, the middle of the night. And no one is up to hear me.