Sleep: That’s What I Really Like

I am not now, nor have I ever been, a morning person. I once had a job where I had to be awake and alert at seven in the morning, five days a week. Everyone said I’d get used to it, but the truth of the matter is that every single morning was a struggle. While I’m sure that my particular fondness for sleeping late on Saturday mornings began long before that job, it was then that I began to covet those mornings.

Now, as I work nearly full-time (okay, it’s more than forty hours a week, it’s probably a little past “nearly”) on a consulting project in addition to my regular blogging schedule plus my other writing assignments, I find those Saturday mornings mean even more to me. I refuse to open my eyes until the sun is high in the sky.

I also refuse to be the first member of my family out of bed. This isn’t easy when two members of the household are of a species that considers sleeping an art form, but I persevere. Sure, it’s a little sad when you see outsleeping as cat an accomplishment, but I take my victories where I can find them. Life is too short to discount the small stuff.

There is a different quality to the sleep one gets when sleeping in. I have been assured by experts that one needs less sleep as the body grows older. No, I say, that is not true. I will never be one of those people who rises, chipper and annoying, before the sun. As an old person, I will claim rising late as my right and privilege. I worked hard my entire life to sleep past eight or nine or even ten if the mood strikes me. I often think that’s the point of retirement — no alarm clocks.

Sleeping late — whether it be on Saturday morning or a rare weekday — has the feel of the forbidden. As I burrow under the covers and keep my eyelids firmly glued together, I feel like I’m getting away with something. Take that, society! I don’t have to be a productive member of your crazy, mixed-up world. I do just fine following my own rules.

I will never understand the people who live by the “I can sleep when I’m dead” mantra. You’re dead, that’s not sleep. The core beauty of sleep is dreaming. I don’t know much about death, having never done it, but I am fairly certain that it’s a dream-free activity. I can’t imagine anyone choosing infinite nothingness over a good dream.

Sleeping-in-late sleep is often filled with great dreams, at least in my experience. It’s not the deep, restorative rest that characterizes the middle of the night (when one has nothing better to than allow the body to recover what it can in the short amount of time between one day and next). Saturday morning sleep is often filled with dreams I remember, the kind that I discuss with a “that was so weird quality”. Why, I wonder sometime mid-afternoon as I contemplate napping in the hammock, did I have to tell everyone I encountered that I have great auto insurance? Did that person in the middle of the road really care? What was I doing?

All of this makes me want to go to bed, but my calendar, helpfully emailed to me on a daily basis by Google, assures me that my first of four meetings today begins at 10. Not the earliest meeting I’ve had this week, but there’s something just plain wrong about having early-morning meetings on Friday. The rest of the household is still dozing — the felines have had breakfast and are looking toward their first nap of the morning.

It’s unfair, sure, but let’s see who’s sleeping at nine a.m. tomorrow. Those cats (and a certain human) won’t be so smug then.