Some nights, regardless of how exhausted I am, I don’t go to bed.

I want to. My body craves the rest, but my mind — for whatever reason — goes into overdrive.

I scroll socials, write the intros of posts I’ll never finish, check and recheck email, and digitally doodle nonsense with some vacant hope that it will lead to something.

It happens randomly. Sometimes not for weeks. Other times, it occurs for days in a row.

This is when it becomes a problem.

Today was a busy day for me, mentally and somewhat physically. By 6 p.m. I was tired — ready to eat supper and relax with my wife on the couch before having an early night.

Now it’s 1 a.m., and I’m writing this in hopes of exhausting the last bit of mental energy from my mind so I can finally sleep.

Sometimes the culprit can be sourced. Sometimes it’s a mystery.

Thankfully, tomorrow is a day off. So the anxiety about the inevitable sleep-deprived brain fog is needless, because it won’t affect anything important.

Still, it exists.

So here I sit, red-eyed and fading, waiting for the storm to exhale its final breath.