Monday, June 23, 2008

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream...

To say that I am a poor sleeper is a complete understatement. I have spent my whole life wrestling with the god Hypnos and his brother Morpheus to allow me some respite.

I can go days where I lay awake all night, waiting for that moment where my body just gives out. In high school, I missed almost a whole semester because I would go so long without sleep that I would cry from the physical pain my body would be in. I graduated on time through correspondence classes and summer school.

I sent this link to Tom because I am highly jealous of the fact that he can nap. And he does so on a semi-regular basis. He sometimes takes two on a Saturday if he gets up early to go out and shoot pictures. Never mind the fact that he’s always exhausted. That’s not the point I’m trying to make right now. My point is that he can lie down and drift off.

All my life I have taken – desperately at times – medication, both prescription and over-the-counter (but never at the same time), to help me sleep. I apparently slept through the night almost immediately after my parents brought me home from the hospital as a baby, but somewhere – somehow – I became an insomniac.

I have to sleep at a regular bedtime. My body tells me ten o’clock is a good time, but I always try to push it a little bit longer. Okay, sometimes a lot longer. But I pay the consequences for reading “just one more chapter.” I have to have sleep schedule or I’m in physical pain.

I was going to say that lack of sleep causes me to not function well, but isn’t that everybody? And the truth of the matter is, I do function well on little sleep. Before my Mother died, she had congestive heart failure and lying down would put too much pressure on her chest, causing her to go into coughing fits. Sitting up took the pressure off her chest, but there was always the coughing. Which kept her from sleeping much.

So I would sit up with her most of the night, then either take her to dialysis or, after I went back to work, go to my job.

I was getting two to three hours of sleep a night. And felt every missed hour in every part of my body. But I wouldn’t trade one moment because sitting up with Mom is time I cherish.

Now, I read for 30 to 60 minutes before I turn off my lamp, cover my eyes with a sleep mask and put in my ear plugs. Why didn’t I think of earplugs in college? The loud dorm was when I slept the worst, but it took my husband, Barry, working nights, for me to come up with the near-perfect solution of almost-silence and absolute-dark.

But Barry does tell me to nap when, on a weekend, I had an especially poor night of sleep – or lack thereof. I’ve tried. I want to. I just either lay there – THINKING about wanting to sleep – or I do drift off, only to wake more exhausted than I began. What’s the point of trying when each and every time I fail?

How is it that I come from two parents who – literally – could sleep ANYWHERE. I mean, Mom took two naps a day and still got a full night’s sleep before her kidney’s failed. And Dad… it was almost rude how he could fall asleep mid-conversation.

Why didn’t I get the genetic ability to sleep with the skills of a professional? I swear, I would think I was adopted if I didn’t look just like the two of them.

Maybe it’s like twins… it skips a generation.

No comments: