Portugal: The Prelude

I should first point out that none of this post actually takes place in Portugal. If you are following along in the story, then this part is critical. But if you are here to glean insights and travel tips, by all means, skip ahead.

Not pictured: Portugal

The insomnia started in Barcelona. 

It was supposed to be a quick trip, a bro-y four-day jaunt with my friend Paul in one of Europe’s most charming and seductive cities. Instead, it served as the crossroads for my soul. 

I’d never suffered from insomnia. I’ve had nights where it took awhile to fall asleep, but those were usually once every few months. Otherwise, I looked forward to going to sleep, reading two pages then drifting into darkness within the healthy 5-15 minute window allotted by the FDA.

Not in Barcelona. 

It really started the second night. I laid down and felt a slight tingle of anxiety in my chest. Something felt off. And then, the tossing and turning began. Eventually I fell asleep at around 4am.

What a night. An aberration, right? The next night I’d take it easy and make it all back.

Now, I was still in Barcelona. So amidst this trouble was Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia, one of the great marvels of my life; an introduction to tapas, an indecisive man’s ideal way to eat; as well as discovering the life-giving, happy-inducing elixir magic that is iced Vermouth. 

But this trip was really marked by the sleeplessness. 

The third night was the worst. I was already exhausted. Plus it was our last night, so we drank heavily. I figured I’d drop into a hazy, if not totally blacked out, sleep. Incomplete, but out nonetheless. 

Imagine my dismay when I was not only tossing and turning again, but doing so in a half-drunk stupor. It was 7am before I fell asleep — for 90 minutes. 

I was lucky my friend and co-traveller Paul is about the most easy-going guy I know, kind and caring, and spending time with him is like butter. And he was especially patient with me during my next day’s space haze. 

Now, you might chalk up this sleeplessness up to a number of things, right? Jet lag, a foreign environment, street noise, weird voodoo, who knows. But all that is moot because when I got home, I had two nights where I barely slept at all. 

And so for the first time, I took a sleeping pill. 

It was glorious.

With some lucidity, I scheduled a therapy session and it all came out. I was bawling. There was this feeling lodged in my chest and it suddenly erupted. And what emerged was how bad I yearned for that which I wasn’t doing: Meeting new people and telling stories. And my therapist, bless her, said: “You don’t need sleeping pills. Whatever’s in there is trying to wake you the hell up.”

Insomnia, to me, is not a mystery. It happens when we ignore what’s most obvious. Caroline Myss calls it “unfinished business.” To me, it’s a restlessness of the soul, an alert that something deep inside is agitated, and it’s talking (it just calls at the most inopportune hours — yet also when we are least distracted).

More than that, with the clarity of a good cry and a great night’s sleep, another revelation came: I was deeply unhappy in my job. 

And said therapist, bless her twice, said: “When you’re unhappy, you can do things. Either try to make it work within the situation, or you do something big to change it.” 

So here I am. On a plane to Portugal.