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February 12, 2007
Poppies! Will Make Her Sleep!
I've never been a good sleeper. Just couldn't get the hang of it. Or, rather, didn't care to get the hang of it. Sleep's always been a hassle, something that cuts into time in which I could be Doing Something Productive. I didn't sleep when I was a kid, and it galls my mother to no end that Clara Jane could win gold medals for her sleeping skills. Like right now? It's 5:48 PM. She's been napping since 3-ish. I know that in the next 12 minutes, she'll be awake. By 9 PM, she'll be asleep, and will most likely stay that way for 11-12 hours.
That parental curse that goes "I hope you have one that acts exactly like you?" It doesn't work. So there.
Anyway, I've always been a nightowl, which means that when I want to sleep at a normal time, I have problems doing so. Example: when I was in middle school, I'd stay up as late as possible on the weekends. By Sunday nights, I wouldn't be able to sleep because by bedtime, there was a good chance I'd only been awake for eight hours. Which was fine with me, because it was 1986, and Sunday nights meant 120 Minutes and The Young Ones - the only two methods of getting a proper punk education in mid-1980s small-town mid-Missouri. That was just as important as school. Moreso, in fact, as I think I gained more from that late-night TV viewing than I ever did from Mr. Pethtel's second-hour physical science class. Or maybe that's just because I was asleep by second hour, thanks to my underground TV viewing habits. Again, just as well, since Mr. Pethtel was a naturalist who didn't believe in deodorant, but did believe in running or biking to work everyday. He didn't seem to believe in showers, though. Sleeping through his class protected my eyes from the chemical burns produced by the worst body odor in the history of body odor.
What was I talking about? Right, sleep. Given my druthers, I would got to bed no earlier than 3 AM and sleep until 9 AM every single day of my life. I'm more productive at night, and the less the sun hits my skin, the happier I am. Six hours of sleep on that schedule, and I'm more rested than if I get nine hours of sleep on a "normal" schedule. Unfortunately, it's hard to function in civilized society on that schedule. Most nights I try to be asleep by midnight, although that usually doesn't happen. The alarm goes off at 7, but I generally don't get up until Clara Jane beckons. Truth be told, the only reason for this is so I can keep her on a schedule that jibes with what society says is good and right.
Did I mention that I'm anti-nap? While I might claim that I'd like a nap, I'm lying. That's time in which I could be Doing Something Productive. Historically, the only times I've been a napper where when I was pregnant and when I'm deathly ill.
But something has happened of late. I sleep. A lot. I think I'm making up for every hour of lost sleep I've accumulated over my life.
Yeah, I know. There are lots of people I know who have sleeping issues. Believe me, I empathize, having been in that sleepless boat. The past year has been exceptionally rough in that regard for me. For most of last summer, the only way I could sleep was on the couch with the TV set to TV Land which would 1) drown out every noise in the house, and 2) bore me into submissive sleep with the likes of "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Three's Company". It was risky, though. In the event of all-nighter "Night Court" or "Newsradio" marathons, there would be no sleep for me. Much laughter, but no sleep.
So don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining about the sudden abundance of sleep. Well, not much. But here's how things are going these days:
7 AM - NPR wakes me up. I roll over and go back to sleep until my bladder wakes me up at 8:30, unless Clara Jane beckons earlier.
4:30 PM - I collapse into a heap wherever I stand, regardless of how many gallons of coffee I've consumed, and go to sleep. Go immediately to sleep. Do not pass the bedroom door. Do not Do Something Productive.
6:30 - 7:00 PM - Come to, often with a child jumping on my head.
10 PM - Must ... fight ... pull ... of ... bed .... Must ... remain ... on ... couch ... with .... knitting ... (or at computer or at sewing machine)... Being ... Productive.
11 PM - Give in to the pull. Insert earplugs, which is a new-ish thing. I started wearing earplugs to bed a few months ago. Let's call it my little Christmas gift to my brain. Turns out, much of my lifelong sleep trouble stems from having hyper-sensitive hearing. I've tried to dull it for the better part of three decades with really loud music to no avail. So I've opted for my back-up option - earplugs, which very nearly drown out the droaning to B.'s CPAP machine, the floor-rattling Basset hound snores, Murphy's screaming night terrors, and the dune buggies zooming up and down our duneless street at all hours.
11:05 PM - Pass out with face in book.
That's right. I've become a napper and a night-sleeper. I'm not sure what to think of this. It's probably due to the tinkering with my brain pills that's occured in recent months. They don't make me drowsy or groggy, which is good. They just routinely knock me on my ass at perfectly scheduled time. Seriously. If Amtrak and the airlines want to run on time, just give them bigger doses of Prozac and Clonopin. Like clockwork, my friends.
I find this somewhat ironic, since a desire to sleep is one of the hallmark symptoms of clinical depression. I never had that symptom; I would always get the opposite - insomnia. Increase my antidepressants, and suddenly I'd love nothing more than taking to my bed for a week or two at a time.
Or maybe my sleepfullness is an artifact of getting older. B.'s always claimed that the human body's warranty expires the day you turn 30. I'm four years past warranty, so perhaps my special sleep-not-needing function has broken.
Or maybe I'm just not caring so much about Doing Something Productive, which could also be an artifact of both the brain drugs and my advancing maternal age.
Regardless, I just woke up from a nap and I can't wait for a socially acceptable time in which I can return to bed. Sleep! Who knew how awesome it is?
Posted by Robin at February 12, 2007 05:46 PM
Comments
It's also winter, so what a better way to pass the
time! Book, warm bed, snooze...I've had crap sleep the past few weeks, so I attempted a nap today after lunch and a bit of reading. We were up with Cosmo this morning before 6 a.m. More on that fun later!
Posted by: Exena at February 12, 2007 10:05 PM
This kind of weather would make anybody sleepy, I think. It's certainly got me wishing that I could take a nap in the afternoons!
Posted by: Lucinda at February 13, 2007 06:23 AM
I go to bed anywhere between 3:30am and 4am and get up between 10am and 10:30am and most of the time my daily schedule works out fine with it.
You hate me now, right?
But I love an afternoon nap.
Posted by: Dixie at February 13, 2007 04:50 PM
See, the problem with sleep is it seems innocent enough but is actually fraught with perilous peril of a very perily nature. For instance, sleep might lead you, say, to having a dream in which Bill O'Reilly is your gynecologist and Phyllis from The Office is your nurse and, worse, you find yourself in sudden, intense pain, and, still worse, you discover you are now bleeding from all of your orifices all at once and require Dr. O'Reilly to shove a big, gauzy towel shoved between your legs as he and Nurse Phyllis whisk you tot he ER. Worse yet, though, is that your final request, "Tell them I love them," falls on the deaf ears of your strangely located grade-school friend, Sarah, who replies with an annoyed, "Why?!?" And then you actually have to yell an explanation to her about the bleeding from the ears and the vag and all. And then you could wake up feeling very unrefreshed.
Not that this has happened to me. It certainly didn't happen last night, and doesn't have a thing to do with my still being awake at 4 AM.
Yeah. You enjoy that sleep.
Posted by: Summer at February 14, 2007 04:05 AM
