I am exhausted today.
As a follow-up to my post the other day about feeling old - there is one other reason that I forgot to mention that is a major contributing factor as to why I feel so old anymore. I could have just mentioned this then - but felt it was a big enough reason to warrant its own post.
You see, I am always tired.
Its not that I have any problem going to sleep - in fact, it’s far from it. Nowadays, once my head hits that pillow, I’m usually out within 15 minutes, if that.
My problem is that I can’t stay asleep.
(As a quick aside: this is the point in the article where - when my wife eventually reads this - she will look disgusted, flip off the monitor and close down the computer. She has had this problem pretty much since our oldest child was born six years ago and hasn’t really had a good night’s sleep since. So, I’m sure she really appreciates me bellyaching about it. Anyhow, let’s all bid her a fond adieu now, shall we?)
Anyhow, up until recently, the biggest cause of my sleep getting disrupted was my teeny-tiny bladder filling up and requiring a midnight stroll to His Majesty’s Throne. However, lately I’ve been getting awakened by another, far more insidious source - my kids.
I should say - kid - as in my son. His M.O. for bedtime has been pretty consistent ever since we decided to put him in his big boy bed: read him a story; lights out; listen to him fuss for 30-60 minutes until he eventually falls asleep; and finally, wake up the next morning planted firmly between my wife and I.
Usually he would simply end up in our bed and I would be none the wiser until the next morning - or my midnight pee-pee run - depending on which came first. Now, as he’s gotten a little older and subsequently, a little heavier, he makes more noise when he stumbles down the hallway, and this has recently begun waking me up.
This is a problem for me, because, despite the fact that I can hear him coming down the hallway, my half-awake brain can’t quite fully process that fact, and thus when I see the little silhouette come flashing into my room, it usually scares the shit out of me. So now, not only do I have to try and go back to sleep with a little pygmy in my bed, but I have to do so with the equivalent of about 10,000 cc’s of adrenaline pumping through my system. And that’s not the type of buzz that goes away easily - it’s more like the type of buzz you need to do a couple lines of coke just to come down a little bit.
Subsequently, this then has the domino effect of making me painfully aware of every single creak, bump and movement that occurs within a three-mile radius of my bedroom, which, suffice it so say - even at the age of 38 - makes it somewhat difficult to go back to sleep.
Take for example, last evening. This was a comedy of errors that continued for a good portion of the night. I was legitimately startled no less that four different times last night. How I did not end up in intensive care in the Cardiology unit of our local hospital is anyone’s guess.
To wit:
11:15 - wakes up to hear some scuttlebutt downstairs. Go down to investigate. Turns out to be one of the cats batting a sock around the floor - and knocking over its food dish.
11:45 - the nightly entrance of our little cherub. However, instead of climbing into bed, he turns and runs back out of the room. I assume the wife told him to go back to bed. I attempt to follow suit and go back to sleep.
12:00 - hear yet another noise downstairs. Notice both cats in bedroom. Go down to investigate. Get downstairs, turn the corner towards kitchen and nearly run head-on into son, who may or may not have been sleepwalking. Check back of my pajamas for stain, thankfully there was nothing. Take him back upstairs and put him in bed with us.
1:00 - hear daughter screaming for mommy. Go to get up, but wife is a couple steps ahead of me. She gets up and tends to daughter.
1:20 - about to fall back asleep, when wife walks back into room, scaring the shit out of me again. Pulse is jacked way up - and I’m convinced I’m having a heart attack. Wife asks me to get spare mattress out of closet so daughter - who had a bad dream - can come sleep in our room.
1:25 - walk daughter back to our room. Get her set up and joke to wife that everyone is accounted for and we should be able to sleep now. Almost immediately hears something fall onto the floor downstairs. Goes down to investigate and finds empty CD case on the floor. Not sure how it got there. Contemplates taking leftover Percocet and washing it down with a couple swigs on Nyquil, but opts against it. Goes back upstairs and lies down in bed.
1:40 - almost asleep when idea creeps in that entire episode would make decent blog post. Starts jotting down notes so as not to forget. Eventually passes out for good around 2:15.
As you can see, this sort of carnival-like atmosphere makes it near-to-impossible to sleep. Now, you could simply say that I’m just completely mental and could chalk this up to some sort of unfounded paranoia - and you’d most likely be correct. However, I’ve always had an abnormally strong fear of things that go bump in the night, and sadly, even as an almost 39-year old father of two, I still succumb to that fear from time to time.
In other words: yes - I’m still scared of the boogey man. Bite me.
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