So, pretty much every old saw about old age is 100% true.

There’s crepitus (the medical onomatopoeia-ous description of creaky joints), and the inevitable geriatric bitch sessions where individualized assaults on the body are compared in groups of two or more, (except, of course for the unmentionable issues which are unmentionable for a reason); and the whole-scale disappearance of words from mental dictionaries (though, thankfully adjacent synonyms seem to hang on longer.) There also seems to be a universal consideration of undertaking the massive Swedish Death Cleaning to free heirs from the unpleasant chore down-road. (Hard pass.)

And then there’s The Insomnia.

What

The

Actual

Fuck?

Who knew you had to plan, worry about and restrict sleep in order to get all the way through the night without weighing staggering into the kitchen to do the dishes?

Normal sleep, a function that previously went on sans thought, has become a battleground worthy of morning updates over coffee. (In truth, last night I only woke up once so now I fear that committing this to ‘paper’ will sentence me to a serious setback). Kinehora!

(Look it up).

That said, both my husband and I now considerately take stock of one another’s Actual Time Slept, occasionally lobbing helpful corrections about deficit fabrications.

(‘That’s weird. I was up from 3-4:30 playing Spades. Have you taken to snoring while awake?”)

Insomnia appears to be widespread amongst my gen. Anecdotally, anyway. As such, I’ve had a cornucopia of remedies suggested. These include:

1. Keeping all electronics and their green (blue?) lights out of the bedroom
2. Playing electronic games in prone position
3. Counting sheep (there are quite a few)
4. Exercising before bed
5. Not exercising before bed
6. Therapy. You know who you are.

During one of my legendary all-night championship Spades matches—while carrying my dead-weight virtual partner—I received an unsolicited offer to sign up for an app of women’s “bilbe” verses (perhaps from a certain politician who has put out his own edition and also struggles with sleep.) Although some of the ad’s multiple pages that I needed to click through to get to my secular pastime featured a pic of a decidedly hot Jesus, I chose not to accept.

So far.

Erika Raskin is Streetlight‘s (tired) fiction editor. Author of Allegiance, Best Intentions and Close, more of her words can be found on her erikaraskin.com and substack.