Good, good night

I am tired. Every now and then I go through a phase of thinking I really don't need as much sleep as I think I do. The first day after a low-sleep night feels okay. I feel surprisingly chipper, which fools me into believing I can go another night on fewer hours of sleep. On day two I am tired. TI-ERD. But I get through the day, although I'm in neutral instead of drive, and everything at work, from answering the phone to typing up church briefs, feels so hard. The upside, as I see it, is that when I'm sleep deprived I can drink as much coffee as I want. Hey, it's medicinal!
Which leads to poor sleep night number three. I crawl out of bed at 6 a.m. with the reluctance of Dracula leaving his tomb at high noon. But after two or three or four cups of coffee I'm chatty and cheerful. Super chatty. Mega cheerful. In a nutshell, I am wired. I think I'm being super productive, but my work production rate and stupid mistake ratio are equally balanced. I blurt out whatever pops into my head, because in my fuzzy state of mind every thought is clever, if not hilarious.
By nightfall of day three I can barely pull myself up the stairs to my bedroom. Changing into pajamas is a climb-Mount-Everest-sized challenge. I do not want to talk. I do not want to think. I fall into bed and like a tree felled by a killer chainsaw.
In the morning I feel groggy, but oddly coherent. Yesterday feels like a bad dream. And as I recall some of what I babbled about at work and at home, I wish it had been.
Today is day two. I will not be risking a day three. My head is full of short-circuiting wires. Ideas develop, then pop like soap bubbles. Is this any way to run a life? Maybe when you're 20.
I suppose I could mope about the fact that, for my middle aged self, eight hours of sleep is a requirement, not an option. I'd rather focus on how firm and welcoming my mattress is going to feel tonight, how my pillow will gently cushion the weight of my overtired head, how softly my worn but heavy quilt will cocoon me.
Good night, sleep tight. And if the bedbugs bite, well, let 'em. I'll be too tired to care.