"The best cure for insomnia is to get alot of sleep."-W.C. Fields

I've always been a night owl. In high school it was how I was able to work 3-11pm as a telemarketer, do homework, get up at 5am for early morning seminary and then off to school. (Well, the getting up for seminary part was more my dad pulling me out of bed by my ankles and dumping me unceremoniously on my rear end. I didn't respond well to alarm clocks.) In college it was just the schedule of how one did things. You didn't even leave to go out until 10:30 or 11. My late night habits led to my dad endearingly referring to me as the "rock creature." My ability to sleep as long and deeply as one who lived under a rock is family legend. Growing up no one trusted that I would wake to fire and mayhem so my sister Stephanie's sole responsibility in an emergency was to make sure and wake me up. Those were the good old days. As a mom with several years of new babies, I have totally adapted to late nights, sleeping as light as a feather, ready to respond to any night emergency or sound, and then promptly go back to sleep. (Oddly, over the years Rhett has become a deeper sleeper, claiming complete oblivion to nightly sounds. I have remedied that problem with a swift kick to the calf.)
The point being (yes i do have one) is that I have always felt I could adapt my sleep patterns to what I need at the time, so to have spent this last week with what I could only describe as insomnia has been a strange experience that has left me feeling very drained. I don't think I have been to sleep earlier than 4am every night this past week. I don't feel tired, I'm not stressing or thinking about anything in particular, my Tivo list is painfully barren, I want to go to bed, I'm just plain wide awake. I have found it somewhat of a boring experience, if not totally frustrating. I've turned to books but I finish them before I get sleepy, I've drunk herbal tea, watched the news, caught up on all blogs and correspondence, end result: yeah, I'm still awake.
On a complete whim, I think I may have cured myself. I ended up at the gym around 9 last night and decided to swim laps. I used to be a certified lifeguard, and while not swim team material, a pretty strong swimmer nonetheless. Fast forward 12 years later of very lax swim conditioning (Does doing the wave pool at raging waters count at all?) and I thoroughly wore myself out. Came home, was in bed by 11:30ish and slept like a rock. Of course, because I seem to always need a healthy dose of irony in my life, Drew woke up with a fever and throwing up around 4am. But I'm hopeful that I'm cured. I may even keep up the late night laps for a while. Who knows, I may come out of this better rested and able to become strong enough to save lives again. I believe that is what is called a win win.