Mama said

All my life my family (and a lot of friends) has made jokes about my sleeping habits. I like to sleep, a lot, as much as I can. In my teen years this hit a high and low point, the high point was that this was the only time I was able to sleep as much as I did on a continuous and regular basis. The low point, I could not escape the many many jokes. God forbid I was really sick and slept because of the illness, no one believed me.

Summer was the best, I worked from 4-11 PM and that was all I had to do, no summer school, no other obligations. I quickly became accustomed to going to bed around 4 AM, getting up at 2 PM and then going to work. The weekends would have less sleep as I worked Sunday mornings but that was only one day.

College allowed for some of my sleep behavior to carry over, again, mostly in the summer months.

Once I got past my early 20’s my sleeping marathons were only for holidays and vacations. If I had a three day weekend at least one of those days would be my "free day", which for me meant I would sleep 10+ hours and not feel bad about it.

Now that I have been working like a normal average adult for some time I get very few of those days. I also find it harder and harder to sleep past 9am. Even if I sleep until 9 or 10 AM I usually wake up out of habit (in a panic) around 6 or 7 AM. No longer can I power sleep for 10 hours without waking up to panic that I have missed or forgotten something.

A few years ago I noticed a funny thing happened, if I spoke to my mom on the phone and mentioned that I had slept a lot in the last day or two she wouldn’t make jokes or chastise me for wasting my day she started saying “you must have really needed it, your body was telling you it needed more rest”.

I’m not sure when sleeping ten hours went from being “lazy” and a “waste of time” to “taking care of yourself” and “listening to my body” but it did and I guess I like this view better.

Here is my point; last night I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open at 7 PM. I knew a nap wouldn’t work; it was too late for that, so I tried to get on the computer, read, talk on the phone, none of it worked.

By 9 PM I found myself asleep with the TV on. I thought to myself “if I am this tired I should just go to bed”. So I got up and brushed my teeth and went to bed.

Then I woke up at 12.22 AM confused and bewildered. I managed to get back to sleep in about an hour and finally got up at 7.30 AM. You would think I would be rested and alert, but alas it is quite the opposite. I have been yawning all day and feel like a hamster on speed. I cannot concentrate on anything for more than 10 minutes.

P.S. I know at least one of you thought this would be about LL Cool J because of the title. Sorry for the bait and switch. My Mama would never want anyone to be knocked out, she just wants me to get enough rest.