Sleep is important, I know. My last year of college, I had mono and weird purple goose-egg lumps down the front of my shins (can't remember the long and strange medical term), due to a lack of slumber. I was busy writing papers, attending early-morning class, and squeezing in the occasional date. Sleep took a low spot on my priority list.
Now, don't get me wrong. I LOVE plunging into my pillows and crashing comatose-style for nine and a half hours, until I can awake refreshed and endued with energy, occasionally to the sounds of birds chirping outside my balcony, if it’s spring. But all too often I face the four to six hours before the alarm clock’s ridiculously early ring (actually, chime—thank you, BlackBerry) with reluctance. Reluctance to wrestle with my pajama pants under the sheets and comforter. Reluctance to admit one more day is going away. Reluctance to place myself in that moment—the moment that I lie in bed and feel an accounting of reality: where I am, what I’m doing with my life.
A few years ago, I usually fell asleep with my cell phone squished between my face and the pillow. My boyfriend lived seven hours away, and I waited up for his calls at night. We’d talk for a few hours, until my responses slowed and slurred. “You’re tired, Sweetheart. I’d better go,” he’d say.
“No, no, no, I’m awake,” I’d argue, and then promptly fall back asleep. I frequently awoke the next morning with no recollection of how our conversation ended.
The first night I went to bed in Korea, on the floor, I felt very somber. I had flown across an ocean in an airplane, literally sprinted around the streets of Pusan in order to complete “Training Day” when all new missionaries met their training partners, and then lugged my luggage a few hours south to the old apartment where I’d be living. I closed my eyes as I lie in the unfamiliar place and prayed, “Please, please help me not to freak out.” I was a brand-new volunteer missionary in a foreign country. That mission evolved into the most joyful 20 months of my life. I believe I went to sleep that night clinging to the faith that everything was going to be just fine.
Last night, I stayed up reading next to the fireplace in Nana’s library, all set to procrastinate bedtime(note: Nana is my very stylish grandmother). The book was alright. I’ve been reading about one novel a night since I’ve been home from Korea, so for three weeks. It takes my mind to another story, someone else’s life all neatly wrapped up in words and sentences. My time home has been great, filled with family and food and unpacking. But bedtime is the worse. It feels a little lonely, and a bit anticlimactic.
Yesterday after everyone else had gone off to bed I realized, sitting there, that I was skimming the pages so skimpily that I couldn’t follow the story. I was swapping precious beauty sleep for a book in which I wasn’t even remotely interested! Enough, I sighed and closed the book. I turned the fireplace off (note: gas fireplace), brushed my teeth, knelt by my bed to say a prayer. Pulled back the covers, turned off the light, took my glasses off and set them on the nightstand.
Then I considered abandoning this plan and going back to the library to try reading a different book.
“No, no, no,” I told myself. I got in bed, closed my eyes, and waited for morning.
to the readers: my new living arrangements are quite nice, including an incredibly soft mattress and at least fifteen squishy pillows (read: princess bed). So, really, I should love getting in that thing. Any suggestions? What do you do to have a good night's rest?
my neice, sleepin like a baby
