I am not one of those lucky people, like my husband, who nods off while reading and then falls sound asleep the minute he turns off the light and his head hits the pillow. No, for me it's a process. I watch television. I read. I think I'm tired. I turn off the light and I lie there. I try praying to clear my mind. I play little games in my head to wear out my brain. I switch position a million times. Even a glass of wine (or two) doesn't help.
Perhaps on a subconscious level I struggle to fall asleep because I know it won't last. Someone or something will wake me before I want to be awake. This morning was a case in point.
Rob set the alarm for an ambitious workout-related 5:00 a.m. Alarm went off, he changed his mind and went back to sleep. I, however, was now awake and not happy about it. I moved to the couch. Prayed, played head games, switched positions a million times.
At 5:15, Maddie decided she needed to go out. I opened the door and she went...and so did the cat. The indoor house cat. Maddie did her business and then promptly decided to take a neighborhood stroll. There was no way in hell I was going to chase her around in my pajamas, so I let her go and decided to try again to sleep. Which I did. Until I heard our resident fox screeching. I wondered which of my pets was going to be her breakfast. Maddie returned. She must have been concerned for the cat because she decided to pace. Her extra long nails clicking around the wood floor. The guinea pig upstairs decided to join the symphony and chew on her metal cage bars. It literally sounds like a typewriter when he does that. Excellent.
I managed to doze somewhere in all this until the cat came home. She stood at the front door and cried pitifully as if someone has thrown her to wolves (or the foxes) when in fact, as I told her, she had put herself in this situation. I let her in and she decided to thank me by laying on top of me on the couch. Very comfy. For her.
At 6:00 a.m., Ian's alarm goes off. No gentle music for Ian. He likes to wake up by what sounds like a smoke detector. Given that Ian doesn't give a hoot what he wears or how he looks, it makes me crazy that he gets up so early. Of course I know he rises before the sun so he can get in a good 45 minutes of computer game time before school. Hey, whatever works for him. I'm too tired to care.
Rob comes downstairs, fresh as a daisy, and calls me "The Queen of All Base" ("base" being sleep in some fraternity vernacular of his). In my mind I kill him with my bare hands.
It's going to be a long day.
1 comment:
Between 5am and 5:15am you moved to the couch and switched positions a million times? That's one thousand one hundred and eleven distinct new positions every second for 900 seconds straight.
I do believe that Newtons third law of motion would back up my theory that if your assertion was true, the friction developed by your rapid body movement would certainly cause the couch to catch on fire and incinerate your insomniatic carcass into nothing but ash.
Since penning this missive is definitive proof that you are not, in fact, ash, I dismiss the veracity of the rest of your obviously hyperbolic claims.
Rob likely was working out like Hans and Franz well before 5am. The animals behaved like they were cast in a Disney film. Ian made poached eggs and brought them to you in bed. Admit it.
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