I was listening to Paul Simon’s “Insomniac Lullaby,” a song on his new album “Stranger To Stranger,” and I was touched by the lyrics. As people get older, they tend to sleep less peacefully and for shorter periods of time. Simon’s lovely song begins with a plea to God not to let him spend another night alone with the moon.

I wake up every morning at 3 a.m., if not sooner, and I guess I still have the old bedwetter’s habit – bedwetters know insomnia well – of not moving until I see the first light, whether I am awake or not. I could get up and write – I sometimes do – I should read, I sometimes listen to music, I often think about what I will write on the blog.

I cherish lying next to Maria at night, it is a miracle to me, every night and I hate to get up and leave it.

I am usually up until midnight or sit up reading or watching strange shows on Netflix or Amazon or HBO. We don’t have a TV any more. I have a mild addiction to British mysteries and their loopy circular Agatha Christie plots and stalwart, no nonsense detectives. Like many restless and anxious people, I have long experienced insomnia. That’s how I became a Valium addict for 30 years, I always took pills to sleep.

When I stopped taking any kind of medication seven or eight years ago – I did not sleep for a long time after that – I entered the dreamy and unnerving world of the insomniac once more and perhaps for good.  I expect that is the nature of my nights now and looking head. Nightime is a  good time to think for a writer. I listen to the dogs snore.

I get also to look at my wife and think for hours about how much I love her. She is not an insomniac, an airplane could crash into the house and it would not wake her. Except sometimes she has bad dreams, and I want to be there for them. I had bad dreams, but I never remember them, and the ones I remember, I will never repeat.

There is a line in ‘Insomniac Lullaby” that struck a deep chord with me. Simon was suggesting that we insomniacs have some perspective, about sleep, about life. Simon is getting wiser as he gets older, like everyone else. The line was “We eventually all fall asleep.” And the more we think about that line, the deeper it gets.

I don’t mean this in a morbid way because I am not morbid about death, at least not yet, but Simon was reminding me to keep a perspective on life and its many ups and downs.  For the last two days, when I saw or heard something that upset me, I said to myself. “We eventually all fall asleep,” and I moved on or let the issue go. It is easy to worry about things, hard to remember that we are all one, and will end up in the same place. Acceptance is a good thing.

This morning, I woke up anxious about whether or not I would sell my next book, I’ve been waiting for an answer for a couple of months, and while I don’t generally do the boo-hoo of writers and their difficult lives, I would like to know about this new idea and what will become of it.  And sometimes, I get angry about waiting. It is nothing person, it is just the way it works.

Publishers don’t generally like writers much any more, they are an impediment to good marketing plans and generally make poor team players. I started to whine about this  in the dark and then told myself “we eventually all fall asleep.”  Will another month really matter?

And my mind moved on, it was remarkable.

I have another line in my head that I use, I suppose it is a kind of mantra for me when I need it. Two years ago, I was in Palo Alto, California,  giving a speech, listening to the director of a new $27 million animal shelter (each dog had his own private room with classical music piped in and sound-proofed walls so he or she would not be disturbed by the barking of other dogs.) The rooms were much nicer than my hotel.)

The director was getting grilled by some potential donors who wanted some guarantees that the shelter would be a “no-kill” shelter, that is, that no dog would ever be put to death there for any reason. The director, who had seemed to me to remain sane and grounded in this unusual environment, looked one of the questioners in the eye (very few shelters, even rich ones, can afford to keep all dogs alive forever, they either euthanize them or send them to other shelters to be euthanized and claim they are “no-kill”) and said evenly:

“We do the best we can for as long as we can.”

I thought this was a beautiful, authentic, even profoundly intelligent answer. It quieted the questioner, who had no more arguments to offer. It made me think about many things beyond dogs.

I have used this quote many times since then, it has helped me to let go of my mistakes, of the hurts of other people, of my frustrations, failures and worries, even of my creativity.

When I am challenged or doubt myself, I now say “I do the best I can for as long as I can.”

Really, there is not much more that any human being can do or say more than that. And it is a “letting go,” quote, when I feel used or discarded or like a failure, I tell myself that I do the best that I can for as long as I can. And I always feel better, I can move ahead. And I will always do the best that I can for as long as I can, that is my intention for my life.

So I have a new saying now to add to the mix, and in our complex lives. We need different ways to let go of frustration and anger and keep our feet on the ground. Our lives are challenging and sometimes stressful. It is easy to fail.

I am reminded not to take life too seriously, not to feel too much too deeply, not succumb to the anger, judgment and self-righteousness that appears to be epidemic in our world right now. I can only live the best life that I can and remember that eventually, we shall all sleep.

We eventually all fall asleep, there are no insomniacs in the great beyond, whatever  happens to us. No failures either.

Life is short and life is precious, full of glory, crisis and mystery. I endeavor to appreciate it every single day. Tonight, when I share so much of the night with the moon, I will tell myself that I will do the best that I can for as long as I can. And remind myself when I wake up in the night to drink in the darkness, love and quiet, crickets and birdsong in my room:

We eventually all will fall asleep.