Those endless nights

For some of you this is going to sound crazy, for others you will understand perfectly, those nights that no matter what you do, what you take or even what you think, sleep just wont come. I am notorious for seeing the dawn in. It doesn't matter whether I am working or not. There have been many days I have gone into work having not slept since the day before. I can think of at least three job interviews I have attended sleep deprived for at least 40 hours.

I would love to blame this on my chronic conditions, because then I would have a cause and be able to treat it. But unfortunately I have been like it since a child, baby even. I never slept till late and normally I would have driven my poor mother to distraction refusing to go to sleep. There was one cure, my granddad playing his lute, despite all my resistance it would win. It usually also sent every one else to sleep as well. Its 14 years since he past and I miss him daily, and feel guilty I never paid attention to how he played the lute, thats still in its case as he left it.

It's funny really looking back the things as we get older. Things that mean the most to us, and the things we regret. In my case I wonder how much more I could have learnt, and why didn't I listen more. Neither of these things would take away the pain, well if 14 years haven't I doubt anything will, but I am still left with those regrets. Saying that there are memories I wouldn't change for the world.

Like the final music competition I entered, the one I wasn't meant to . I already had lost my hearing in my left ear and I was so ill I couldn't hear a thing I played. I mearly went there to accompany my granddad who was very frail by then with what was misdiagnosed as dementia, but was really sticky blood syndrome causing mini strokes Anyway I am getting side tracked, I showed up at the venue instrument in boot just to join in with the communal playing at the end, and no piece really prepared. I will quickly explain this is the world banjos mandolins and guitars, slight less formal than standard orchestral instruments but just as competitive. We get into the venture to find out I have been entered regardless the moment I walked in the door to do a solo on my banjolin . I had in the past held both this cup for musicianship and the alternative cup for technical difficulty that's held at another gathering. So streaming with a cold leaving me virtually deaf I have to get someone else to tune my instrument whilst I drive through my file of music hoping that one piece I was currently studying on the violin would convert. Then I did the craziest thing, I left Granddad in the audience and went into a hallway with only my mother and just did one run through then non stop scales and arpeggios to get my fingers moving. Nothing more, I was resigned to the fact this would be a disaster as I couldn't hear my own tuning, and was reliant on the frets as a guideline. When called I entered the hall piece of Schubert and banjolin in hand really wishing I could be in the audience rather than the final competitor in what I had heard was a cut throat competition. I started to play and even with my hearing being at its lowest I realised the hall and gone totally silent apart from my playing after the first 16 bars. I  just carried on playing knowing that the only times that silence had happened before was when a person was either spectacularly wonderful  or equally as bad. I actually never really heard the applause if I am honest what I saw and will always remember is the look on my granddads face, its said it all. I don't know to this day how I sounded, excepted from everyone elses feed back and the fact I won the cup, to be perfectly honest it didn't matter that look was worth so much more. All day he held that cup and I think it meant more to him than any other award or competition I ever won. It means even more to me because within 8 weeks he died, but he died knowing his grand daughter was a national champion in an instrument he taught me.

These memories always come back to me on these nights of insomnia, along with the mixture of bitter sweetness they carry. Saying that if I didn't have nights like this would I remember the little things that put the days pain into perspective. I achieved the impossible then when it meant so much to some one else, maybe that's what I need to do again. The joke in this house is I have more lives than my cats, literally cheating death 3 times that we remember and beating the odds more times than that. May be I am very lucky, or as other put it very stubborn, I personally think its because I am not done yet. I don't know what I am meant to do or finish yet, but all I know is every cheat came with a cost of responsibility, mainly to those around me who haven't given up even on my lowest of days. My lack of sleep is just another hiccup in my working, I haven't finished thinking and learning yet. I would rather suffer the endless nights because it means I see the dawn of the next day and what ever that holds.