Of Sleep and Long Nights by Konnie Enos

At the end of a long weekend, my older son needed to return to where he works in the northern part of the state. The fastest way to get him to where he needs to be is for my husband to drive him there. He doesn’t want my husband driving back alone so my younger son went along for the ride.

This means several things for me and my daughter.

For starters, we’d have to do the chores normally done by the now absent men. Or more like my daughter would because I’m not able to do them myself.

The next hurdle would be dogs wanting out in the middle of the night. My daughter hates anyone waking her up at night, but I simply do not hear them when I’m asleep.

We know this because my family members have mentioned the annoyance of dogs barking to get one door or another opened. As a rule, when I lay my head down at night I’m down for the count within half an hour. I would never call myself a heavy sleeper. I can wake up to alarms, but not necessarily any other sound from my phone. My bladder wakes me about three times a night. My family can be talking, particularly if they are in my room.

Dogs barking in the middle of the night?

I don’t hear it. I wouldn’t even know they were doing it if my family members hadn’t told me about how annoying it is. As a result, me and my daughter discussed how to manage me not hearing them wanting out of my bedroom. The result was that we left my bedroom door open.

Now, with my door open, my daughter turned off all my lights so that it wouldn’t bother her. Since she goes to bed at least a couple of hours before I do, it means I am sitting in the dark.

No problem. Sitting up doing stuff on my tech, which provides its own light, is something I do most nights.

Now the issue.

At some point, after my daughter had gone to bed, my son, sounding rather tired, called telling me they were where his brother is staying. As I am telling him to get some sleep, I hear my husband in the background saying that they are turning right back around and coming home.

Then the phone went dead. For whatever reason, I didn’t call them back to clarify my husband’s intentions for the evening. One could assume I spent the next several hours concerned about my tired husband driving eight hours back home in the middle of the night.

I did not.

I had known how my night would transpire as soon as I learned he was going to be gone overnight. For some reason, I don’t sleep well when my husband isn’t at least in our bedroom when I go to bed. More accurately, I don’t get tired enough to go to bed when he isn’t here.

Under those circumstances, I either stayed up all night or did not crash until three or four in the morning. Staying up late means I sleep in. Often not getting up until ten or eleven.

Now the problem is that I often wait to write my post until around six on Wednesday morning. Staying up late wasn’t going to be a good idea.

What happened?

It was well after two in the morning when I decided I was not going to get any sleep. I decided attempting to write my post would be an effective use of my time.

 Guess what happened within an hour of me starting to type.

Yeah, that’s right. I crashed.

I somehow managed to wake up with the sun even though that was something like two hours after I fell asleep. But, of course, that limited amount of sleep means I’m exhausted now.

My day can go one of two ways.

I could fall back to sleep. Melinda is the only one up and about, so the house isn’t noisy. I am also still groggy and periodically putting my head down for a few brief moments of rest. My body would love some more sleep.

The other option is that I can’t fall back to sleep because my husband isn’t here. Or the sun's up. Or my daughter is doing her chores. I did get about two hours of sleep. I’m not thoroughly exhausted anymore.

So, if my notifications on social media don’t go out at eight in the morning as usual, blame it on me falling back to sleep. I’m most of the way there already.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.