Sleep
I have come to crave it. Sleep. The joy of it. That feeling when you slide in between those cool (or warm) sheets and s t r e t c h out your toes and groan a little bit as your back settles into the softness.
The way it feels to sink a cheek deep into a pillow.
I have my routines, as most of us do. I take a long, hot shower around 9 p.m. and then get right into bed after a brisk dry off. Many nights, I don't even comb out my hair. For many, many months, I had none to comb so I grew out of the habit. Now, it is so short that it hardly matters and can be easily styled in the morning.
The bed feels great. I love it when the lights are shut off and a muted darkness falls over the room. T generally stays up later than I do and a slender triangle of light spills into the hall from the living room. Living in a city, it never gets truly dark, either. The street lights slide under the blinds and sneak in.
I settle back and turn on my iPod. Shuffle, usually. Or, occasionally I will crave Sheeran or Springsteen, DeWyze or James Taylor's soft voice lulling me into peace.
I generally choose to shuffle, though. It is always a surprise then and even Mayday Parade's "One Man Drinking Games" doesn't unduly awaken me from my near slumbering state. I lay nonjudgmentally, listening. Peter Schilling sings about Major Tom. The Handsome Family croons the theme song from True Detective, "Far From Any Road. Taylor Swift reminds me that "I Knew You Were Trouble" from the get-go. A few more songs spill over and then I know that I am one step away from sleep as Sheryl Crow sings about "All I Wanna Do." I slide the ear buds out and reach next to me to place them on the bedside table. Ten seconds later, I am gone.
There was a time when this was not possible. When sleep eluded me. When I used my iPod to try to ward off pain and nausea, dizziness and a throat so sore that I could barely speak above a whisper. I don't like to think about those nights. The ones where I was awake at 3 a.m., wondering if I would ever be well again, ever sleep deeply again.
So, I am grateful now. I tend to sleep so deeply that T says she puts her hand on my chest to check for its rise and fall.
"You sleep like a dead woman," she says. "You don't snore. You barely move. It's like you aren't there."
I sometimes think that I am not there. Sometimes, back in the days of treatment or, as I called them, "the time of torture"...I would be in such pain that I would actually feel myself leave my body. I would rise up and float away for a while. Not death, just a brief escape from the container that I no longer understood or even liked.
I don't remember much about those nights, late afternoons....except that I was flying and it was lovely. Pain free. Nausea free. Terror free. Just flying. There were others with me but I can't remember them now. Just that I knew them well and was delighted to be with them. Maybe I learned the art of flying well and I can go there now when I sleep. Wouldn't that be lovely?
Either way, I treasure my sleep. That delicious sinking.
I crave it.
The way it feels to sink a cheek deep into a pillow.
I have my routines, as most of us do. I take a long, hot shower around 9 p.m. and then get right into bed after a brisk dry off. Many nights, I don't even comb out my hair. For many, many months, I had none to comb so I grew out of the habit. Now, it is so short that it hardly matters and can be easily styled in the morning.
The bed feels great. I love it when the lights are shut off and a muted darkness falls over the room. T generally stays up later than I do and a slender triangle of light spills into the hall from the living room. Living in a city, it never gets truly dark, either. The street lights slide under the blinds and sneak in.
I settle back and turn on my iPod. Shuffle, usually. Or, occasionally I will crave Sheeran or Springsteen, DeWyze or James Taylor's soft voice lulling me into peace.
I generally choose to shuffle, though. It is always a surprise then and even Mayday Parade's "One Man Drinking Games" doesn't unduly awaken me from my near slumbering state. I lay nonjudgmentally, listening. Peter Schilling sings about Major Tom. The Handsome Family croons the theme song from True Detective, "Far From Any Road. Taylor Swift reminds me that "I Knew You Were Trouble" from the get-go. A few more songs spill over and then I know that I am one step away from sleep as Sheryl Crow sings about "All I Wanna Do." I slide the ear buds out and reach next to me to place them on the bedside table. Ten seconds later, I am gone.
There was a time when this was not possible. When sleep eluded me. When I used my iPod to try to ward off pain and nausea, dizziness and a throat so sore that I could barely speak above a whisper. I don't like to think about those nights. The ones where I was awake at 3 a.m., wondering if I would ever be well again, ever sleep deeply again.
So, I am grateful now. I tend to sleep so deeply that T says she puts her hand on my chest to check for its rise and fall.
"You sleep like a dead woman," she says. "You don't snore. You barely move. It's like you aren't there."
I sometimes think that I am not there. Sometimes, back in the days of treatment or, as I called them, "the time of torture"...I would be in such pain that I would actually feel myself leave my body. I would rise up and float away for a while. Not death, just a brief escape from the container that I no longer understood or even liked.
I don't remember much about those nights, late afternoons....except that I was flying and it was lovely. Pain free. Nausea free. Terror free. Just flying. There were others with me but I can't remember them now. Just that I knew them well and was delighted to be with them. Maybe I learned the art of flying well and I can go there now when I sleep. Wouldn't that be lovely?
Either way, I treasure my sleep. That delicious sinking.
I crave it.
Comments
Post a Comment