sleep

i must confess ... i have been having an affair ... with sleeping. 

napping specifically. napping is the best. 

i never napped as a child. i was the kid who would get to stay up at naptime in daycare because i wouldn't fall asleep. i can remember being forced to lay down on the couch at my babysitter's and laying there day after day, waiting to be allowed to get back up again. 

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I'm awake, you know?” ― Ernest Hemingway

at night, i often wake up numerous times. over and over again i see the hours pass by on the clock. but during the day, i find the wonderful bliss of sleep. the bliss of a nap. 

there is nothing like the sunshine streaming in the window, the fan blowing gently, and curling up in my bed, closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep. 

but why am i sleeping so much lately? why do i find it hard to stay awake during the day?

“I don’t know if you’ve ever felt like that. That you wanted to sleep for a thousand years. Or just not exist. Or just not be aware that you do exist. Or something like that. I think wanting that is very morbid, but I want it when I get like this. That’s why I’m trying not to think. I just want it all to stop spinning.” ― Stephen Chbosky

sometimes i want to just slip into sleep and stay there. my bed is warm and cozy. and the outside world doesn't reach into my dreams. the night has always been hard for me to sleep. i can remember being 9 and tossing and turning. sleeping upside down. trying to sleep with my legs up on the wall. 

this discovery of napping is very new for me. for some reason, i find it easier to fall asleep during the day.  

“I've always envied people who sleep easily. Their brains must be cleaner, the floorboards of the skull well swept, all the little monsters closed up in a steamer trunk at the foot of the bed.” ― David Benioff

at night, i wake up and then lay there, wishing i could fall back to sleep. eventually i do fall asleep, only to wake up another hour or so later. 

in the daytime, waking up after an hour or two works well. 

yesterday SC and i fell asleep on the couch and it was suddenly 7pm. it was a great nap after a fun adventure in the morning.

“Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.” ― Audrey Niffenegger

sometimes i wonder if i am truly tired, or if i just want to enter that space where i can escape from the world. the one place where the outside world can't touch me. and other times i think that i am truly tired. maybe i have low iron. or maybe naps are my way of sorting out what is going on in my mind - by entering the dream world and letting my thoughts process. 

“It was that sort of sleep in which you wake every hour and think to yourself that you have not been sleeping at all; you can remember dreams that are like reflections, daytime thinking slightly warped.” ― Kim Stanley Robinson

my dreams have been vivid lately. vivid and full of crazy plot twists. dreams about people i know. dreams about places i have been. dreams about driving. dreams where i am trying to run but my feet will only move in slow motion. 

“I made a nap this afternoon. I made it out of two pillows, a bed, a sheet, a blanket, and exhaustion.” ― Jarod Kintz

this afternoon i didn't nap. only because i slept in until 1:30!!! it was the best sleep. lying in the sunshine in my cozy bed with my cozy blankets and cozy pillows. 

as i write this, i am watching the clock, knowing that it is getting late and that soon it will be time for bed. my favourite time of day. the time of day when i get to cuddle and feel loved, and then i get to drift off to sleep. 

mmmmmm ............ sleeeeeeep ......... zzzzzzzzzz ...

“I love sleep because it is both pleasant and safe to use. Pleasant because one is in the best possible company and safe because sleep is the consummate protection against the unseemliness that is the invariable consequence of being awake.” ― Frances Ann Lebowitz

be kind to yourself, 

xoxo

“Buy or borrow self-improvement books, but don't read them. Stack them around your bedroom and use them as places to rest bowls of cookies.

Don't power walk. Saunter slowly in the sun, eating chocolate, and carry a blanket so you can take a nap.”

― S.A.R.K.

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