Like a little death
Would you like a little death with your coffee, sir? And you sir, cake or death?
Actually, I’m referring to sleep, which is a like a little death and boy do I adore it — more so during the night than during the day. I’m not really all that keen on naps. One, they take up time that I could profitably be using to DO something in, even if that something is reading, thinking or eating bagels. Two, I always wake up disoriented and crabby as all heck.
But I positively love getting into bed at night, pulling up the covers and knowing that soon I will sink into that lovely sea of sleep, warm as toast, soft as butter. In fact, I often try NOT to fall asleep right away so that I can wallow in the awareness that sleep is pulling me down. I used to think everyone slept like this — I now know it’s a bit of a gift, one I’m very grateful for. I’m not looking forward to the apparent wakefulness of menopause. What DO people do when they can’t sleep? I have no idea. It was one of the single most disturbing things about having a newborn — that I simply forgot how people go to sleep. Clearly, this baby had no idea and wasn’t taking any hints. How is it that people sleep?
I recovered from that lapse in my love-affair with sleep. Now my problem is that I simply do not have enough time during the hours that I am voluntarily awake to get everything done. I thought maybe I would try getting up earlier (since staying up later just means I watch more Doctor Who and don’t get anything done). But oh my sainted aunt Penelope and her little dog Foofoo, it’s hard hard hard.
Then I read this article from Discovery and realized that it’s not my fault at all. It’s my darn genes. I don’t have the Ben Franklin, Winston Churchill gene that allows me to get five hours of sleep and still be all right. I need something closer to nine. Eight, I can cope with, but seven? Six and a half?
Bring on gene replacement therapy. I’m going to be first in line for the I-need-less-sleep gene as well as the grow-taller-than-a-measly-fivetwo gene and perhaps the when-stressed-refuse-to-eat-and-thus-lose-weight-rather-than-gorge-on-chocolate gene. Failing that, I’m going to have to start going to bed before nine just so I can get up early enough to exercise, write, complain, meditate, work, parent, eat, worry, call my sisters and blog before tumbling back into bed at nine with a little shawl and a cup of herbal tea.
