Web Toolbar by Wibiya

Thursday

Love Is...Interrupted Sleep

My quest to fend off aging and stay healthy is never-ending. Part of this is getting a good night's rest. I have been trying for nearly two years to get in a routine of going to bed at a reasonable time so I can get my 6 - 8 hours of sleep in.

I haven't been very successful.

I pick up the effort every few months, most recently, this month. I've set my knockout for the night time at 11pm (ish) give or take a few minutes to make sure my teen isn't goofing off in his room instead of sleeping.

Lately there's been a new threat to getting a solid night's sleep and it isn't either of the kids. It is the wife.

On Tuesday morning
after staying up until 2 am to study, my wife bursts into our bedroom and addresses me with a military man's sternness:

"Eric! I don't know where my phone is."

I don't know who I am or where I am. I look at her like she's a loaf of bread.

She repeats herself, louder this time and I recognize where I am, who I am and who this is that's speaking to me. Now that I'm awake, why is the biggest question on my mind.

"Your phone?" I ask, incredulously.

She explains to me that she doesn't know where I put it and she needs to set her alarm to get up in the morning. I remind her that I gave it to her just in case she needed it while she was studying. She claims no recollection of this. I stare out into the darkness, jump out of bed, march down our new set of stairs, stomp through the living room to the exact spot where she was sitting and find the phone sitting right next to the laptop she was using to study. I retrace the path I took, stomping the entire way, knowing I wasn't going to get anything close to an apology, grumbling loudly to myself and hand her the phone. She could have used my phone (which was right next to my sleeping body) or the house phone to call the phone to locate it.

"It was right next to your laptop on the couch!"

"Why are you yelling?!" she asks, yelling back at me. "I didn't know it was there!"

What I didn't know was why she didn't look. Now the issue was no longer that I had been awakened for no reason at all. I wasn't awakened for late night kisses or an "I love you," I couldn't refuse. It was for a phone that had been beside her. The issue now was that I was yelling in the middle of the night and have a bad attitude when I wake up.

But I didn't wake up. I was snatched from sleep. And I stayed awake for another 2 hours trying to go back there.

On Wednesday morning
, (the very next day, Wednesday) at 4 am, my wife bursts into our bedroom having spent most of the night asleep in our daughter's room. It happens when we read her bedtime stories. I hope we're not the only ones.

"Eric, why are all the lights on in the house?!"

"Uhhhh...." is all I can manage.

Slowly as I came to myself and realized once again, who I was, where I was, and when I was, the question again arose, why in the hamfat am I being awakened for no reason at all?

Immediately, I was interrogated as to why all the lights were left on downstairs. When it comes to wasting anything in our house there's only one culprit --- my son.

"You know I didn't do that," I say. "I don't understand, if you saw the lights on, then why didn't you just turn them off?"

"I did but it was jarring to see lights on downstairs with all the lights off upstairs."

"The alarm is on," I interject.

"I didn't know that. I mean did you go to sleep before him [our son] and just leave him up to his own devices?"

Yes, he had a party with the bottle of Patron and Mount Gay in the cabinet,
is what I wanted to say. "Uhm, no..." I said too tired to be angry, "I was the last one asleep but he went back downstairs to get some water. I don't believe our electric bill is going to hit the roof over four extra hours of lighting in two rooms. Seriously."

Whatever else was said didn't matter. Again there was no apology. The comforter was snatched off of me as she got comfortable. Then the pillow I was lying on was yanked out from underneath my head.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked, stupified beyond stupification.

"Oh, you were using that?" she asked back. "Sorry." She pushed the pillow into my face, turned over and went to sleep. And men are the bad guys, I said in my head.

By the time I got comfortable again my daughter began to sneeze in her sleep until she was awake. I got up, checked on her and eventually managed to get some shut eye forty-five minutes before my alarm went off.

Love is...

Have You Subscribed Yet? * Are You On Facebook? * Do You Tweet?

blog comments powered by Disqus