October 5, 2010 To Sleep or not to Sleep

Growing up, my bedroom was just down the hall from my parents’.  It wasn’t the most exciting room in the house, but it was all mine.  It was neat and fairly simple.  Never had anything on the walls, hard wood floors without a rug  and two windows.  I had my stereo on my dresser and my albums sitting on my chest of drawers.  (For those of you that have no idea what a stereo is, it is prehistoric version of the Ipod with speakers built in. ) The room was completed by a twin single bed that had a matching unit in the guest bedroom right next to mine.

The thing I remember about that room more than anything was not anything in it but a sound that would drift into it every night.  My father was a heavy sleeper and an equally heavy snorer (if that is a word.) His snores would make my windows shake. You could hear him on the other side of the house. In the end, it drove my mother to sleep on the couch in the family room. Yet, despite all of that, I found it a comforting sound. 

My father had a bad heart.  He had rheumatic fever when he was in his twenties and was told he would likely not see 40. Luckily he did, because that was when I was born.  He somehow managed to live for 50 years after they told him he had a little over 10, at best.  But even as a young boy, I knew that he had heart problems. I always knew that he might not wake up in the morning. There were times where in the middle of the day, he would just lay on the bed motionless waiting for the pain to stop. When I would wake up in the middle of the night I could always rest easy because I knew he was still alive as the rumble rolled from beneath his door. 

This was great for me but not so much for my mother.  My dad could sleep through a train wreck. My mother could wake up if the train wreck happened in Cincinnati.  She lived on three hours of sleep every night.  She would wake up at 2 AM and start cleaning the house, or she would sew for hours. I would know because the Singer was on the other side of the wall where my head would rest. 

I find myself in the middle of these two extremes, but more closely aligned with my Mother.  It is not unusual for me to be roaming the house at three in the morning. I have done some of my best work on this blog long before the sun rises. 

Some would find this a blessing, the ability to survive on four to six hours of sleep a night. I’m not so sure I do.  It is during these extra hours, the hours laying in bed trying to get back to sleep that my mind performs some of its less that exemplary work.  It is during those hours that I somehow find myself thinking about my plight in life. 

As good as I feel and as normal as I can live my life, in the deep recesses of my mind, I cannot forget that I have a disease that has no cure.  It is during these idle hours that my brain cannot turn off.  When you have that much extra time, you think about everything under the sun.  As I tell Justin when he rolls in a little later than preferred, little good happens at 3 AM. 

I have tried everything imaginable to beat this sleeping curse.  I’ve read, watched TV, listened to music and nothing works.  I hate to actually get out of bed because that almost certainly assures elongated alertness.  I have tried three different sleeping medications, none of which were worth the co-pay.  I have finally given up on medication and just concentrated on relaxation and keeping my mind as blank as possible.  (Some of you may feel that that should not be too difficult since there isn’t a whole lot going on up there most of the time.) Maybe one day I will just resign myself to the fact that this is a blessing and not a curse.  If you ever see me working on my landscaping in the middle of the night, you will now know why. 

I bring all of this up because there are times I miss that snoring.  Today marks the 20^th anniversary of my Father’s death.  This year also marks the 35^th anniversary of my Mother’s death.  Until this year, I would always take the day off from work on one of their five year anniversaries to visit their graves and have a word or two with them about my life.  Odd that this is the year that I probably have more to say than ever and I won’t be able to make the trip. 

I guess I’ll just have to have our little talk in the quiet of the night when I am having trouble getting back to sleep. As I mentioned earlier, it is often the time that I do my best work.