sleep where for art thou?

It is nearly 2 am and I am awake blogging.  I'm exhausted, but here I sit on my computer.  I should be in bed.  I have to wake up in just over 4 hrs.  The thought of how tired and coffee dependent I will be tomorrow is torturous and should have driven me to the comfort of my warm bed hours ago.  Yet here I am, once again avoiding sleep.  Back in the day I used to avoid sleep too, but for a different reason.  Then I had horrific nightmares that happened more often than not.  They were terrifying and I would wake up crying and shaking and sometimes screaming.  The nightmares finally stopped about a year after I got married and I slept like I had never slept before.  Then I had kids.  No nightmares, just late night feedings and middle of the night feedings.  They finally learned to sleep through the night and once again I slept beautifully.  I refuse to say I slept like a baby.  For anyone who has ever been awake every 2 hrs to feed a newborn, you understand my aversion to this statement.  Baby's DON'T sleep that wonderfully!!!!!!!!  So  over the last 10 months or so, I find myself avoiding sleep again.  I'm sure that some part of it is that when everyone else is in bed, I finally get to take off the mom and wife hat and let myself be Dawn.  I love sitting in the quiet of my house when I am responsible for no needs.  So on one hand, I do enjoy talking to long lost friends on facebook, reading everyone's blogs and writing in my own blog.  On the other hand, my eyes are drooping pretty badly right about now and I'm wondering what I'm still doing awake.  Why am I dreading going to sleep?  I need to be in bed before Hubby's alarm goes off at 2:20.  I'll get scolded if I'm not.  I have so much on my mind.  I cannot think and process it all during the busy daylight hours and so that leaves only these late night hours to process everything my brain is thinking.  I think I hear Hubby's footsteps overhead, I may already be in trouble.  It has been a rough couple of months. I am feeling like I can tackle life again but I just need to absorb everything that I've not had the emotional or physical energy to process these past couple of months.  How do I do that?  I am finding myself hungry for soul friendships.  I have several so it's not that I am looking for new ones.  It is just that I am craving that time with friends who know me to my core and don't judge me and who encourage me.  And I want that time when I don't have to separate 3 boys fighting, or deal with poor attitudes or make dinner or change a pullup or make someone pick up some mess, or in our house I hear myself say a little too often "Flush the toilet and put the seat back down!"   I want that quality time with a kindred spirit that does not involve my whole family of 5.  So I find myself here.  I read blogs of people dear to me and feel like I am a part of their lives even though I know they have no idea I read their blogs.  Tonight I discovered that some read my blog as well for a sense of belonging in my life and I also never knew.  So we still know so much about one another, feel like years or miles never separated us, feel like we can still hold each others hearts, and yet neither one knows that the other feels the same way.  It's a lonely way to have dear friends!  How is it possible that I have 2 friends that I talked to today who I think about and pray for regularly, we were really close years ago and now live really far away, but today is the first time in ages that I have actually verbalized how much I love them?  I can barely believe that all 3 of us have allowed ourselves to get lonely while loving and praying for the other!  The problem is communication.  I feel those things but have I said them?  Unfortunately the answer is no!  I am completely blessed and fulfilled by my time with the Lord.  I know that I am growing in my walk.  But even Jesus had his friends who supported Him and encouraged Him.  He had 12 but only 3 were soul friends.  Twelve men surrounded Him, three guarded His heart.  Today I found myself longing for the three.  And this evening I found it chatting on facebook.  It was like balm to my soul to talk with my friend.  We talked mostly about what's going on in her life, her struggles.  But still it blessed me, I felt that closeness that we once shared.  I knew that our friendship is still strong even though years and miles separate us.  I think I needed to write this just to remind myself that it is ok to need people.  Even Jesus, God's own son, needed more than time with the Father, he also needed companionship.  I didn't know when I started this where I was going with it, just knew I needed to vent.  Now I know what I needed to figure out.  I need friends,  some who are fun and silly and you have a great time when you're together, some who will kick my butt when needed, some who will cry with me, some who will encourage and support me, and some who will allow me to be all of those same things to them!  And there is no shame or guilt in needing others.  God designed us that way and delights in how he made us!