sleep, what’s that?

My mother always said I had my days and night mixed up as a baby. It seems I haven’t grown much out of infancy. I am, in my circle of those who have every slept with or near me- or for that matter ever said “hello” to me, known as one who sleeps a lot. I sleep late. I take naps whenever I can and I will probably -at least twelve times in one conversation- mention how tired I am. This moniker -or shall I say albatross?- I wear is somewhat ironic because I endure a very displeasing condition called “primary insomnia.” This doctor fancy word for what really goes on is just a way to say that I think too much when I try to go to sleep for the night and thus push sleep back and back and back until, sometimes, it doesn’t exist anymore.

Needless to say, this has and has not been the case with my summer of nothing. Since nothing is on the agenda each day, I have found myself taking a nap at the drop of the hat, or every hour I’m actually awake. I have taken to taking naps whenever and for however long I like blatantly ignoring phone calls and putting off whatever anyone needs from me. Sleep has been my only job. Until, of course, I slept too much and withstood 2 entirely sleepless nights watching the worst infomercials of the year and the glances at a censored portion of a “girl gone wild” far too many times. And I won’t lie when I say that being awake at 4 am and knowing the best thing on TV is the CBS “up to the minute” and that those poor souls probably hadn’t slept all night either made me fee sad for them.

The fruitless in these topsy-turvy sleeping patterns, these reckless abandonment of my circadian rhythms have forced me to right the wrongs, grab a normal sleep schedule and then force myself to greet the day and make hide or tail of it. Today, I got errands done and little bit of babysitting and some phone calling. That’s a big day compared to yesterday when I finally did pass out at 12pm to sleep to 5pm. Oh ya’ll it’s not so fun. But, it’s OK, unlike my baby self I have grown up ways to get my mind to settle and my body to breathe slowly and for sleep to come dropping slow, just like it will right now, at 1:22am. Night ya’ll.