CUL-DE-SAC

 I love sleep. But I’ve become a suspicious and jealous lover since I began a new job that requires me to awake at 4:30 a.m.

 I have developed a routine that involves getting six hours of sleep overnight and an hour nap the following afternoon. It works, most of the time. When it doesn’t, I carry the heavy weight of fatigue.

 Weeknights, I now sleep in a small guest room on the first floor of my house while my spouse and kids sleep upstairs.

 Sometimes I lie in the dark, waiting for sleep to arrive, and I hope she understands she has a job to do and she’s late. My dicey relationship with sleep actually began four years ago when a traumatic head injury jammed some of the avenues in my brain that cause you to slumber. I’ve been taking sleep meds ever since.

 Here’s what Shakespeare had to say about wishing for sleep:

 O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Henry IV, Part 2

 I have a couple of days off this week to rest up. You just need to do what you can to get on sleep’s good side.  

This entry was posted on October 21, 2011 at 5:01 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.