« Why do I look so depressed today? | OK, back to home | Moving Day »

Friday, August 12, 2005

Let Sleep Fall

It pleases me to fall asleep exhausted every night. When my head hits the pillow and I’m immediately entering REM cycles, I know that — in some fashion — I’ve earned that rest.

Usually, that’s how it is; my mama raised a good sleeper. Sometimes though… Sometimes it backfires and exhaustion keeps me awake out of spite. I think of all the things I still need to do at work and process everything that happened that day. It’s especially loud if I made a mistake earlier in the day, even a small mistake like forgetting to change the date on a news release before sending it out. Then sleep eludes me for hours.

My ex-boyfriend, a very orderly, analytical sort of guy, writes down lists (numbered lists of course) before he goes to bed of everything he has to do the next day. It’s his way of releasing the thoughts from his brain and creating some sleep-inducing order.

That’s the opposite of my order-making methods. Thoughts swirl and collide and stop and start and intermingle and crash and bang. I do my dreaming before I sleep. And then, when I’ve had enough and it’s finally time to rest, the only method is to move to the far edge of the bed, which must be against a wall, and then I lean my back against that wall, wrap my bare arms and legs around a big body pillow and practically smother myself to sleep, fending off thoughts by blocking them with the wall behind and the pillow in front. For most of my life I’ve slept this way. I suppose you could hypothesize that I’m recreating the confined space and comfort of the womb, but that would only be B.S. I shared a womb with my sister, so I’m sure it wasn’t very comfortable.

Posted by Aaron on August 12, 2005 10:22 AM