September 27, 2025 2:37 AM
sleep
I'm standing in line at the neighborhood coffee shop, contemplating what drink to get. I want a latte, but I'm not sure if I should get it caffeinated or not. I like the taste of caffeinated coffee, but I was so uncomfortable trying to sleep last night and I don't want to have that same amount of trouble sleeping tonight. But is caffeine really the issue?
...I completely forgot to ask for decaf. Oh well. This latte is...okay. I got almond milk. It was a whole extra DOLLAR. Maybe I can try again with oat, but I'm not sure I like this latte all that much. It's like...weirdly burnt tasting. I kind of wish I got decaf. My mom talks about not eating certain things because it's a "waste of calories", and sometimes I think that certain things just aren't worth the caffeine intake.
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I went to visit my dad's family a week ago, and overall it was a good time, but my sleep was all over the place. My sister and I took a redeye to get there, and I don't think I got more than two hours of sleep. I feel like I used to be able to sleep on planes, but now I'm lucky if I fall asleep during take off and stay asleep for even half an hour. My sister is dead asleep the whole flight. It took so much force just to wake her up when I needed to pee.
So we arrived at around 8am, and I may have taken one short nap during the day, but once it got to night time, I could barely keep my eyes open, and I fell asleep right after hitting the pillow and I probably slept for 10 straight hours. Honestly? It felt SO. GOOD. I don't really want to be sleep deprived, but man, sleeping feels so good when I'm sleep deprived.
The next night I couldn't sleep again. And I wasn't alone. As I was restlessly lying in bed, I could hear so many noises. People walking around, getting up to pee. I saw the glow of my aunt's phone in the middle of the night as she was looking at it. Is this how it normally is here? How do they stand it?
My uncle told me he has trouble sleeping too. He's thinking about everything he can think about and it keeps him up. He gave me some advice: count sheep. Man, I tried it. Maybe I'm bad at counting. I don't think I hit 100, but I also didn't fall asleep because counting seemed worse than just thinking about other things at night.
Luckily I was able to sleep better the third night. I guess that sleep deprivation was kicking in again.
As for right now, I'm sipping my apparently caffeinated latte. I have a little headache and my eyes feel tired. Maybe something changed in me once COVID started because the sleep problems always seem to come back. But at least being in the cafe is nice.
_ /( ) , |/ __! `=====' That's me with my laptop on my lap