I'm 56, I manage an office, and for about six years I've blamed my nights on one thing: getting older.
Then one morning my wife left a note on the kitchen table. She'd been keeping a tally on the fridge. 10:48. 1:17. 3:06. 5:21. Four times.
I laughed. Then I read the times again, and I stopped.
02:07 AM
I Wasn't Scared. I Was Annoyed.
I spend most of my day in a chair. So when I woke up at 2:07 for what felt like the fourth night that week, I wasn't scared. I was annoyed. I had a budget meeting at nine.
I lay there doing the math on how tired I'd be. Then I told myself what I always told myself: this is just what happens when you get older.
I didn't want to make it a big thing. I didn't want to go down some endless rabbit hole of remedies at two in the morning. So I didn't. For a while, I just lived with it.