Monday 22 July 2019

"Sleeping In"

When I was a teenager, I could sleep like the... uh... dead?  I could sleep like the extremely sleepy.

I would sleep til 11, easy, on non school days and sometimes, if life (or my parents) allowed it, I'd hit afternoon, maybe even 1 or 2 if memory serves.

At some point in my not teenage years, I started having sleep problems.  I tried medications for a while but after arriving at work not remembering the drive, I started looking for alternate treatments.  One of my exes (can't remember the nickname I gave him, but I probably mentioned his recommendation at the time?) recommended acupuncture and I've been going regularly ever since, and it has helped a great deal.  I still manage my sleep, including no more napping, and trying not to sleep in anymore.

It seems as I continue to age (every day apparently!) that my body has its own ideas about when we should wake up and I'm finding it really funny.

In these summer months of the longer days, I will often wake much earlier than in the dark winter mornings.  I still like to sleep as long as possible, so when I can, I let myself "sleep in"... as in, I turn off my alarm.

Some non-alarm mornings, I'll wake up convinced I've slept in oh so very long and look at the clock to discover it's not even 8 am!  And that happened so many times it became quite funny to me (because I still felt rested, and was able to doze off for a bit, which is a delightful feeling!).  So this weekend it was even funnier when the opposite happened!

Usually, I wake up a little when it's light out and my neighbours are starting their mornings... grinding coffee, starting their cars, that kind of thing.  So this morning, I hadn't heard my neighbours yet and I giggled to myself, tee hee, I was awake "early" again, I bet it wasn't even 8 yet, no one else was awake!  And I rolled over and looked at the clock and it was nearly eleven!  WHAT?

So then that struck me as funny because lately without an alarm to wake me, I seem to have no idea of what time it is anymore. 

I know I'm pretty lucky.  I have friends who can't sleep past 6, even if they desperately want to, and friends with kids who are like "sleeping in?  what's that?"  So I'm grateful for my quiet, sometimes lazy, cozy mornings, no matter what the time I end up "sleeping in" to.

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