Zzzzz

I’ve been thinking about my Meme a lot lately. She’s been gone for 21 years. Maybe it is because I have grandchildren of my own but I really think it is because I have begun to have serious sleep issues. I know, you’re wondering how I made the leap from comparing grandchildren to sleep issues. Let me explain.

Lurking around and listening to adult talk was my forte – my mom would murmur, “Big Ears is around,” meaning she noticed me and was alerting everyone to watch what they were saying which only made me want to listen more. Rarely was there anything interesting being discussed but an ongoing and constant theme seemed to be my grandmother’s inability to sleep through the night. As a kid that seemed impossible and using my limited logical knowledge I thought this was a unique problem of my grandmother’s. Let’s fast forward 45 years.

I can not sleep through the night to save my life. I fall asleep fairly quickly but then I proceed to wake up about every two to three hours. Most of the times I use the bathroom and go right back to sleep. But more and more often I lie awake for hours, not feeling particularly sleepy or upset or anything really, just awake. Sometimes I will get up and make a cup of tea, read or vacuum. You can do that when you live alone – vacuum anytime you darn well please.

My doctor prescribed an off-label sleeping aid but it makes me feel so drowsy during the following day that I only take one on Friday or Saturday night giving me that off day to recover. Every once in a blue moon I’ll have a random sleep through the entire night and it is a true miracle. Overall I don’t mind getting old; it is such an interesting journey. The sleeplessness is one aspect I could do without. But if it helps me remember an important person in my life; one that accepted and loved me just because I was ME, well that is not a bad thing and worth (sort of) the lack of sleep.