Ahem. (Coughcough)
I haven’t gone back to bed in the morning in TWO WEEKS!!!! Yes, you did read that correctly! No, I am not kidding!!
What’s that? Someone seated over by the back window is wondering if this statement with worth all the font points? That person is clearly not fully human. That person is clearly part robot. These partial robots live well-infiltrated among us. They hide so well you may be sitting by one RIGHT NOW. You may actually BE one! (Ever seen Blade Runner? See, I’m right.) I actually MARRIED one. So did my sister! How do you know if you are married to a Manbot or Wombot? (Not to be confused with a Wombat, although both do have pouches for carrying tiny members of their species, can be temperamental if you cross them, and literally have a tough a . . . er, backside they will crush you with. No, the noticeable difference between a wombAt and a WombOt is wombAts have no fashion sense and wear the same fur all year long. Pedants.) Here is how I figured out my husband is a Manbot: when he wakes up the morning, he has so much energy, he physically has to slow himself down. He actually runs in to large pieces of furniture and walls because he just can’t help it. He smiles. He tells jokes. He asks questions and ACTUALLY EXPECTS ME TO ANSWER. WITH WORDS. My sister made the terrifying discovery very shortly after her wedding: “He wakes up singing show tunes,” she said, brow afurrowed and glowering of expression. “At FOUR A.M.”
Clearly no real human could wake up in such a state, thus I am certain they are part artificial intelligence and Microsoft has a pact with the government to conceal it all. If perchance, you suspect that you might be part robot, let me explain what it’s like for real humans.
Light is streaming through the window. Your alarm is going off. It has been sounding for sometime now and you’ve hit the snooze a few times. You contemplate smashing your alarm with a large hammer, but that would require not only getting out of bed but also destroying your phone, as it’s your alarm. You try to open your eyes. It’s so hard. Your eyelids are so much happier closed. You breathe a sigh of peace as you let them close. But that peace is short-lived. Sound is again intruding on your well-being. It’s a harsh, high-pitched, rapid sound. It's not the alarm, you stopped that nonsense. The sound is getting louder. It’s in your room, it’s next to your bed. Why must the universe torture you so?! You struggle, you draw on your mighty intellect and college eduction to decipher the sounds. Words. Ah yes, those are words. But what mysterious language is this? Has some alien begun its invasion right here in your bedroom? No, wait. You know that word. The alien is saying it again. “Mmmmmmahhh . . .” And again, “Mmmmmaaahhhhhhmmmmm . . .” Despair fills your being. That alien is YOUR alien. You crack one eyelid. Your four year-old is standing at the side of your bed, eyeball to eyeball with you. “MOM!! SUN IS UP!! GET UP!!”
Everything aches. Everything hurts. Am I hung over? No. In fact, I don’t drink, ever. Was I beat up by large ruffians last night? A substantial portion of me wishes I had been. Then I would have a solidly legitimate reason to stay in bed and be fussed over. People would bring me delicious homemade meals and extra fluffy blankets to comfort me. I could binge crap tv and sleep when the mood struck. Ahh, what bliss that would be, other than the assorted broken bones and internal hemorrhages. But no such luck has befallen me. This, my friends, is how I feel every morning.
Every. Morning.
Why? I have spent decades, literally, figuring this out. A gia-hugic part of it has to do with the fact that I went back to bed yesterday morning and slept another 2 hours and 18 minutes. When I woke up the second time around, I felt fine. Sure, I wasn’t singing show tunes or trying to move at sub-atomic speeds, but at least I felt like I’d rather be up and moving than be in full-body traction. But that morning nap meant I couldn’t fall asleep last night. And I couldn’t stay asleep. Did you know almost nobody posts interesting stuff on Facebook at 3 am? They need to get on that. “Random and Interesting Crap to Read at 3:47 am” definitely has the ring of my new internet addiction. And guess what, they still haven’t posted anything interesting at 4:17 am. Or at 5:02 am. And thus I fall asleep while standing up in the middle of my kitchen at 9:28 am.
How did this wretched heinous cycle start? Oh, pick your poison: continuing bad habits from college late-night cramming, getting sucked into a delicious book because I finally have ten minutes to myself, waiting for the washer to finish so I can get that load into the dryer so everyone has clean underwear tomorrow, or falling into the great maw of that sleepavore known as MOTHERHOOD. And with the big M come all kinds of sleep-death traps.
- Babies who sleep on the Jack-In-The-Box schedule -- will he wake in two hours? Or six minutes? Or 30 seconds after I get into the bathroom?
- Babies who decide to sleep eight hours straight after waking up every 23.8 minutes for the last three days so that now I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, listening so hard to the basinet for the slightest indication of breathing that I'm pretty sure I can hear my own ventricles opening and closing. I think I have a murmur.
- Toddlers who vomit all night.
- Toddlers who think it's perfectly fine to wake up at 2 am and go for a walk.
- Toddlers who like to wake up and stand over you while you sleep and whisper "moooommmmmyyy . . . "
- Teenagers (no qualifying situation is needed here.)
This is why my sleep has been crap for the last three decades. And this is why every day for the last three decades, I crave going back to sleep like an earthworm craves mud. And like the poor worm, most of the time I get stranded out on the treacherous pavement of life, waiting to get flattened by the enormous shoe of Having to Deal with Puking Toddlers, or Cranky Teenagers, or Traitorous Vehicles and Their Mysterious Workings Under The Hood, or Conniving Sales People, or COSTCO (truly, this is what Hell will be like) while only 43% awake. On a good day.
Now you can begin to understand the sheer joy, nay, revelry I find in accomplishing that which seems most basic -- staying awake during the day. How have I accomplished this? Working my friggin' tail off, that's how. (Sleep hygiene/diet/exercise/natural hormone therapy/kicking my kids out of the house one at a time/keeping a daily routine.) But I did it! And guess what? I still hate morning. And I still think it should be illegal to sing or make loud noises or even breathe aggressively before ten am. But at least I'm awake to grumble about it!
All of the above....
ReplyDelete