Monday, November 7, 2011

I choose sleep

Most days of my life i'd rather catch some zzzz's than stay up typing away words with no specific meaning. I enjoy writing (obviously) but i don't have that obsessive compulsion that is built in to some people's DNA that keeps them going even when their eye lids close mid sentence. That's the problem with any career ambition i might seem to conjure up, i'd rather crawl under my comforter than deal with text book reading and lecture sitting or for that matter, paper writing. Maybe it's because i really don't know the direction my life is going at the present, although does anybody really? Or actually it's because i really do just like sleep. I mean who doesn't enjoy sleep? On days when it's a bit cold and the clouds form this gray oppressive layer that literally feels like its enveloping any motivation I might have started the day with, the bed calls. I walk past my short dark hallway and see the rumpled comforter peeking out the doorway, it's saying "come...you know you want to. I am so cozy and warm and soft. Who needs to be productive? Just come and take a little nap."
Now, since i have a two year old most of the time i can't give in. It's when he's sleeping that i have a hard time resisting. "Ok!" i say, "but just for a little bit, i should be doing other things."
Damn you bed, why do you have to be so tricky, but oh so inviting?
I get snuggled in and the warmth starts to blanket me while my cheek feels the softness of my flannel sheet beneath it. Soon enough i hear the click, click of the pug's toe nails as she trots down the hallway in line for the bed. Her compact little pug body nuzzles under the covers and soon she's sleeping in the crook of my legs. Her face squished but happy against my knee. She snorts and then sighs in to a dreamy sleep beside me. I drift off maybe for a handful of minutes, only to be awakened by the little boy in the next room alerting me that he is ready to get up. Nothing gets you out of bed quite like a child wanting to to paid attention to. "up, up.....uuuuuppppp!!!" Yes, alright...i hear you!!
I can't lounge quite like i used to, in college i was the master at "studying" in bed, the latter didn't last long but the naps were fabulous. Nothing lasts forever, and i need to remind myself religiously of  that when i'm not able to get the sleep that i need, that i crave, even if it's absent for just one night. Honestly, the "Nothing lasts forever" mantra should be the official slogan of parenthood. It reminds me that this moment will pass, whether it is meant to remind me to linger in the moment or when i'm frustrated and angry that this too will be just another memory that i will be laughing about a few years (or weeks) down the road. Things are experienced and then forgotten, tears are cried and wiped away and heads are bonked and always kissed better. Everything is fleeting and when we have children we just hope that the moments that pass, whether they be big or small, end up tucked away in a little crevice of our brain, easily accessible when we need something to keep us going. Whether I'm lacking sleep and my eyelids feel like they are closed before they even open or i'm frustrated and short tempered because my life is not going the way i had envisioned it. I'm conciously trying to remain in the present and enjoy the moments as they come. Even if its just the few minutes i get to lie in bed with my pug, or the moment I press the publish button on my blog, these just might be enough to give me the momentum i need without having to bide my time before i can have my first glass of wine and drink my anxieties away. The little moments, they matter more than any one of us ever anticipates.

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