I can't say my relationship with sleep has been an easy one over my lifetime. We have a love/hate relationship, honestly. I love to sleep more than just about anything, but I find it such an elusive tease when I want it, and a clingy nuisance when I don't. I feel a mix of awe and bad-natured jealousy when I witness people who can fall asleep in a blink, when they only have time for a twenty minute nap, and then they pop up feeling completely refreshed. What is that like? Really? I have to budget more than an hour for a nap every time that I attempt one, thirty to forty minutes to fall asleep, and twenty minutes or so to gain any real rest. And the night time is the worst. I can lie in bed for hours, waiting for my brain to shut off, even when I am utterly exhausted. On the back side of that, once I do fall asleep, I could happily stay there for days. Is there anything more satisfying than that deep sleep from about five in the morning until about nine, as long as it's on a day when no human has to move around the bedroom to get ready for work, no dog has to be let out, or no bladder demands to be emptied? When I was a child, I swore my father liked to torture me, waking me up early in the morning, even on holidays and during the summer. I do not understand morning people. I can get up when I have to, but it always hurts so much, especially when I have an early flight or appointment and wake up three or four times before my alarm, in a panic. I always feel like I'm cheating myself.
I probably failed as a parent, raising an insomniac child, and not being able to pass along good coping methods for how to manage the same problem I had. Like her mama, child number one would rather stay up until the wee hours every night, and stay in bed until noon, and she has been like that since she was a toddler. Of course, neither of us could get away with that for most of our lives, but the best advice I could give her was to "suck it up and deal with it; go to bed and try." I don't think I used those exact words, but it might as well have been what I said. That's how she heard it. She worked with it by taking a night job, and I've been slipping back into that schedule so I can communicate with my traveling man. But it's wearing me out, and I hope that she finds a better job with more standard hours.
I was supposed to go help out at the Bonfire house today, when they built the new deck for the hot tub. Instead I dragged my tail around, helpless against the lethargy built by a week of digestive upset. I finally had to admit defeat mid-afternoon, and I canceled and took a four hour nap. Apparently I really was that tired. Now I'm stuck, feeling groggy but unable to sleep again so soon, well past midnight. And the cycle continues, for yet another day. Does there ever come a time when sleep is regular and easy? I've never experienced it. I wonder what it's like.
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