The Sleeve of Care

"You'll find yourself sleeping a lot," a friend said a few weeks ago. "You should just sleep and not feel guilty about it."

My problem was quite the reverse; I couldn't sleep at all and I refused to take sleeping tablets (not that anyone was prescribing them to me officially). So I forgot about what she'd said.

More recently, all I want to do is sleep. I sleep large chunks of the afternoon away and when I miss calls and have to return them, I sheepishly say, "My battery ran out", or "I left my phone in my bag and I couldn't hear it." Last night a friend called at 9.30pm. Not late. But I had already been asleep for an hour an a half, helped along by no electricity at home and a lulling breeze outside.

I look forward to weekends, when I don't have to wake up at 5am, with the eagerness of someone waiting for an advance copy of her book. Traditionally Mondays are supposed to be the worst; for me, it's Wednesday and Thursday (for other reasons as well) because that's when 'returning were as tedious as going o'er'. Then I remember that only one way is always open and that the next minute hour day week and then I can't bear to think any further.

One baby step at a time.

What if I slept it all away and the steps have been taken and I don't have the burden of remembering? That's called sleepwalking. That's what I would like to do, what I am doing but because I know it's what I'm doing as I'm doing it, it's no help at all. It's like the kind of sleep when I know I'm dreaming and I wake up exhausted with the effort of it. In fact, the worst part of falling asleep is the waking up when the Things To Do list act as my alarm clock at odd hours of the night (and in my case, day). When this happens, I jump out of bed because I'm falling behind with the things that need to be done, bump into several things and panic.

Did you ever dream of a day when you could sleep from whenever to whenever, without having to do a single thing you didn't want to? I do. All the time.