I’m Feeling Rather Sleepy

One of the best feelings in the world is waking up when I’m good and ready, and not having to wake up because my alarm is going off. 

Recently, I slept – during the work week – for eight glorious hours.  Yes!  I describe those eight uninterrupted hours of sleep as glorious.  I could have slept even longer, but… my alarm went off.  Still, I didn’t get up in the night to go to the bathroom, and I didn’t wake in the night from worry about work or a stiff neck or aching back.  MOH’s morning alarm (which goes off two hours before mine) didn’t wake me up, and a little dog that often wants to go out in the middle of the night, slept through.  It was a win all around.

I look forward to sleeping in on the weekends.  I yearn for a cozy decadent nap.  I thrill to the thought of crawling into bed early, until… it’s too early to go to bed.  There are never enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do AND I don’t want to miss out on anything, so then I stay up too late.  And then I wake up tired.  It’s a vicious circle.

When I was in college, napping was something we scheduled just like one of our classes.  And Sunday sleeping was the best. We would sleep in until 12:30pm and then have just enough time to grab something to eat before the cafeteria closed for the rest of the day. Then it would be time for our 1:45pm nap.

Napping is a time honored tradition in my family.  My mom was a napper, and she had a flat stone making her declaration clear. Now I have it and carry the torch. Someday, my son will inherit it.  Mom also had an apron that my sister made for her after an incident in which our harried Mom said, “Be nice to me. I’ve been up all day,” a direct quote we never let her live down.

My son and I used to play a game where we would imagine a world in which a day had the perfect number of hours.  We debated how many hours were for sleeping, how many hours were for working (you still have to make a living), and how many were for leisure, chores, etc.  I think we landed on a six-hour work day, five days week:  two hours for things like grocery shopping, paying bills and other chores we really don’t want to spend time on; ten hours for whatever we want to spend time on; and twelve hours for sleeping.  If there were 30 hours in day, what would you do with your extra time?  And who wouldn’t be excited about a 60 hour weekend?!

The thing I am most looking forward to about retirement, is turning off my alarm.  My aunt warns me that by the time I’m old enough to retire and sleep as long as I want, I won’t be able to sleep as long as I want.  I can see I’m already starting down that path.  Like my parents before me, I find myself falling asleep in my chair in the evening, but when I get up and go to bed, I sometimes can’t fall asleep.

Spontaneous naps are also pretty great. In fact, I feel one comin…