I like sleep.
I like to sleep. I like sleeping. I like having slept.
Two of my favorite times of the day are falling to sleep and first waking.
People who say “they’ll sleep when they’re dead,” are missing out on one of life’s pleasures.
To me, that’s like saying, I’ll have sex when I’m dead.
Ridiculous, right?

Sleep is a fascinating thing… a shut down and reboot of our natural systems. We all do it, to some extent or another. Teenage boys and newborns probably more than the average person. For some it comes easily, for others, not so much. Some fight it, some embrace it, others don’t think about it at all, they just do what they do when they do it– no joy or resentment, all automated.
But c’mon, sleep is just as important as eating, so you might as well enjoy it.
A good night’s sleep is the Diet Coke and Doritos of an important process, a special treat.

It takes a while for me to fall asleep. I’m one of those who regardless of how exhausted my body may be, my brain doesn’t know how to shut up. So, of course, I’m also one of those who wakes easily. And then fights to fall back. Knowing how much I enjoy the practice of sleep, you can see how unfair this is.

This may also be the #1 reason I only had two babies.

Lately, I’ve been suffering from allergies or weather fronts or some kind of cootie and have been taking drugs to help me get through the night without coughing. I follow the directions, take them at the appropriate times to get a full eight hours, and yet it seems like it’s about 5 am before they kick in. And then they kick hard. Is there a more comfortable time to be in bed than ten minutes after you should have gotten up?

Some folks need less sleep than others, can function on a bare minimum. Some need more. Key word being need. I feel bad for the folks who consider sleep an inconvenience.
I’m not saying I want to sleep all of the time, I’m just saying that when I do sleep, I like it.

I have dealt with bouts of insomnia. Deadlines and finals weeks always triggered compulsive waking disorder in me. Even when I slept, visions of projects crawled through my head keeping me from a deep carefree slumber. I learned not to fight it. At first you’re angry, frustrated, tossing and turning, but once you know sleep is not coming, I’ve found it’s best to just get up and do something. I practice functional insomnia. I wrote a story about a fellow non-sleeping friend and I and our adventures as the Insomni-Action Duo!  (patent pending) PTA Moms by day, super-heroine crime fighters by night!
It would make a fantastic graphic novel.

Maybe I appreciate sleep because I feel like I’ve earned it? Long days, busy schedules, always a deadline and an ever building to-do list for the next day… and yet…
What is it about 4 am that has me alert and thinking maybe I should just get up and tackle that list? Which I don’t of course, I should be sleeping. Then it’s 7:26, a respectable wake-up time, and then a few more minutes of good hard solid sleep later, it’s 8:30.
We call those “time slips.” I could have gotten up at 7:26, but I thought four additional minutes was in order (because time only really counts on the 00’s and 30’s, right? Maybe a 15 or 45, but never a 26!). On Wednesdays we’ve been known to succumb to the time slip, not often, but sometimes it’s okay to sleep till 10:30. It was 8:30 just a minute ago!

Once in a blue Wednesday, we’ll take an afternoon nap. I never have trouble dropping off at 2:30 in the afternoon, even if I slept in. The incongruence boggles the waking mind.

The Midwestern winter sun-cycle wreaks havoc with my sleep. It’s dark at 5 pm, so bedtime must be right around the corner. It’s also that much more difficult to get out of my nice cozy bed come the dark morn. I imagine I would be quite the sleepyhead should I live someplace that experienced 24 hour midnight. That said, I’m pretty sure I’d figure out a way to sleep in the midst of 24 hour sunlight.

Because, I like sleep.

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
― Homer, The Odyssey