To Sleep, Perchance...
I always say that our daughter takes after my husband. Not only does she look a lot like him - as everybody always observes - but her personality is also a lot like his. Just like he can't sit still, she is also always on the move. He gets restless after a few minutes in one place, and she, too doesn't like to be held down. I always tell him that, at least in this way, they are alike. So, yesterday, he says to me, "You might think that it's only me who's like that, but you also are restless." Of course I denied it - anyway, it's so obviously not true. I love to sit in my corner for hours on end reading, doing sudoku puzzles, checking blogs, or even just doing nothing at all. How could anyone in their right mind call that "restless"? So he explained, "you can't go to sleep." Now, that is true, and I won't even bother trying to claim otherwise.So, of course, that got me thinking. Why am I like that? Why don't I like to go to sleep? I used to say that I didn't want to think I was missing something, or that my mind was just too busy to let me rest. But that's not 100% true. The whole truth is that I don't like going to bed because I always feel like there's something else that has to be done. Not in that house-wifey, do the dishes, clean the house sort of way, but on a deeper level. There is always something more to accomplish, and that thought, lodged deep in my subconscious, doesn't let me sleep, doesn't let me want to sleep. It's not like I spend that time actually reaching any goals or anything; usually I'm just wasting time, but I don't want to go to sleep because maybe, just maybe, in another minute, I'll start doing whatever it is that I'm staying up for night after night.
posted by SS @ 11:44 PM
4 Comments:
predictably, i'm like that too. falling asleep is hard for me b/c i get the double dose: the existential AND house wife thoughts. "i shoulda done 1 more load of laundry" followed by "i shoulda finished writing the lyrics to that song and rehearsed X, Y and Z and and and and" the list is never ending. i fall asleep when my brain gets tired of berating me and loses track of its list...
so your brain doesn't keep you up with the housewife shpiel? i'm jealous...
Ayala: it's not always that simple. I agree that just staying awake won't make me accomplish anything, but it's hard to "turn it on" for a limited time and then turn it off. I'm worried that if I start I won't stop and then where will I be the next day?
BWUR: Well, those things do plague me also, but it's not what I'm staying up for. If it was, I would just do them rather than wasting my time on other stuff.
ss: LOL... but somehow i don't think you were kidding...
Part of the problem is synchronizing the demands of life with your natural sleep rhythms.
When I dormed at YU lo those many eons ago, I used to typically go to bed around 2:30 am and sleep all morning. Once I started working that schedule obviously had to change drastically, and for the past two years that I've been going to morning minyan, I get up even earlier. But I'm still a night person by nature. When I have something that's weighing on my mind, I'd much rather do it the night before than leave it for the morning.
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