Praying Prayers, Counting Sheep

The other day, my brain sprung awake at midnight, after I fell asleep at 8.  I made this Facebook post:  "Well, hello new kind of insomnia.  I've been awake since midnight, which is much earlier than I usually wake up with insomnia.  About an hour ago, I decided to just get up, putter a bit, drink some hot tea, see if I got tired.  Nope.  And now I'm hungry.  Hmm.  I've paired a lovely cinnamon-apple hot tea to go with my Trader Joe's cheese that claims to be soaked in Syrah.  Once the tea cools off enough to drink it, I'll need to slice some more cheese, just to be sure the pairing works.  There's a reason I'm not a wee slip of a girl!"

One of my friends posted back that she usually lies in bed and works her way through the alphabet, naming an animal to go with each letter.  One of my other friends made this suggestion:  "I pray for people in alpha order by their first name. If I'm still awake, I do last name."

Last night, I woke up, and I could feel my brain wanting to shift into high gear, thinking of projects due, books that need to be read for this week's classes, worries that wanted to crowd out my thoughts about classroom assignments.  So I decided to do the prayer version of counting sheep.  Oddly, I also felt the need to preface my prayers by apologizing to God for praying with the intention of falling back asleep, but that my approach didn't mean my prayers weren't sincere.

It worked.  And a few hours later, when I reawakened, I was able to pick up midway through the alphabet, where I left off.  I don't think I got further through the alphabet than the letter T, but then again, I don't have anyone with the first or last name starting with an X, Y, or Z on my list either.