Sleep

Sleep, you little rat bastard. You fill me with need and then dash my hopes night after night after night You are my Moriarity. I hate you and love you all at once. I defy you and yearn for you in the same breath. I may act coy and aloof as if I don’t really need you. As if I can function perfectly fine without you. I flaunt my indifference to you in martyr-like fashion, adopting an air of superiority. All these other fools seem to fall apart without you, but I carry on steeled in my Joan or Arc perseverance to not crumble under your tyranny. Yes I put on a good show, but strip away the bravado and I am just an exhausted lump longing for you to take me into your arms and cast me under your spell.

And you just love it, don’t you. You toy with me in your feline-ious ways. You taunt me all day with eyes half open, yawns coming almost as regularly as breath, and once I finally put head to pillow, you are no where to be found. Or even worse, you take leave of me early in the morning, like a guilty lover, you slink away too early to be late, and no multitude of sheep or ambient noise machines can take your place.

And what an insidious army of minions you have enlisted.   A husband who falls back to sleep before his head hits the pillow and cannot be roused by his alarm, or the cacophonous synchronicity of his and the dog’s snoring; teenagers who can sleep 23 ½ hours a day; a dog who has to be part owl since he sleeps all day and is awake most of the night, and a mind so filled with to-do lists, worries and random blog ideas that it will not quiet. Only you would turn my very family and my own mind against me. Brilliant, cunning, evil.

Yes, I admit it; you are a master, always one step ahead of me. Without you I am a hideous, impatient, idle wretch. I look forward to your next visit, yet you never stay long enough for us to truly get to know each other. And perhaps therein lies your Achilles heel. You toy with us all, hooking us on your addictive properties, laughing at our inane efforts to court you with dim lights, no electronics, regular exercise, no caffeine after certain hours, the Lunesta butterfly and, of course, the proverbial warm milk. You resist our every move maybe because, like so many men of a certain age, you fear commitment. Perhaps if we get too much of you, we will cease to appreciate you, we will take you for granted and you will become mundane, routine, the least interesting of our basic human needs.

But don’t you know that the more we get, the more we want? Have you ever met anyone who says they are well rested? Is there a single human being who doesn’t, at some point of every day, in response to the query “How are you” say “I’m tired?” Even teenager #1 who enjoys your company for sometimes up to 13 hours, wakes up tired and takes a nap only two hours later. It is impossible to get our fill of you.

So you have a choice, Sleep, you can continue your power hungry lonely ways isolating yourself as something to be loved and reviled, or you can take a seat at the table and stay awhile. I won’t get too clingy, I promise. I won’t pressure you or try to change you; I just want to get to know you a little better.

So I’ve exposed my queen, it’s your move.  Do not underestimate me, you may knock me down, but I will always get up. Can you handle that? Or are we going over the falls together?