Sleeping In

Dearest Rachel –

I’m sure you’re looking at that title, and fully expecting to get a good laugh out of my story, in much the same way you would when I would refer to us as living “paycheck to paycheck.” In my defense, I would often point out that by the time I received the next paycheck, we had spent everything that I had been paid from the previous fortnight on bills and groceries; it’s all a matter of perspective. That being said, just the fact that I address it in the first sentence should tell you all you need to know about how I recognize that my idea of “sleeping in” would border on the absurd to you.

Bear in mind, however, what my basis of comparison is. For the last couple of months, whether I’ve liked it or not (and there have been plenty of mornings – if you could even call them ‘mornings’ when it’s still so dark out – when I most decidedly didn’t), I’ve found myself up at the crack of dawn, or even earlier, in order to get a workout in before beginning my day at the ‘office.’ Even so, I could barely get myself washed, dried, dressed, fed and out the door in time to get there by nine o’clock, when I’ve internalized that I ought to be there (the whole concept of the “nine-to-five” grind instilled in us since childhood – you can probably still hear Dolly Parton belt out that phrase in your head). So I would make a point of getting to bed that much earlier in order to get up earlier and so forth. You thought it was odd when I went to bed at ten-thirty back in the day? I wonder what you would think of me nowadays, when I might bid Daniel goodnight around ten – and this without me having to report to a real office for a real job with a real paycheck anymore.

Which is what finally hit me at some point, I think. Sure, the folks might want to know when I’m going to show up – and after a while, they’re so habituated to my arrival that if it’s delayed, they start to wonder (I got a text yesterday at about 10:30 asking me where I was and if I was coming over at all, for instance) – but I’m not beholden to them; I don’t have to be there, let alone be there at a certain specific time. So why concern myself with trying to get there by nine, ten or any particular time of day? I know the door is always open (and even if it isn’t, I have a key); I can show up when I want to. There’s no particular need for me to push myself – apart, perhaps, for maintaining some sort of disciplined routine, like I do with so many things I try to do every day.

But for all the things I do to maintain a certain discipline in my life, there is one thing that runs counter to all that; unless I absolutely have to be somewhere at an odd hour (like a red-eye flight or something like that), I try not to rely on or use an alarm. I’ve hated that sound for years – and I’m sure I’m not alone in that. As far as waking up goes, it ought to be done organically, and let the day proceed from there. Admittedly, this isn’t something that everyone should do; some jobs will always require you to be there at an ungodly hour, and you need to force yourself awake through this artificial means. But I have the luxury of not having to concern myself with that, and as such, I shouldn’t put myself through something that does me no good in the end.

Besides, it isn’t as if I don’t already wake up at a more than reasonable hour; as I said before, I know you’ll find it funny when you hear what time I “slept in” until. It’s just that it’s so much later than I’ve been waking up lately, especially considering the fact that I fell asleep in my bedroom chair some time between nine and ten last night (which is early, even for me). To be sure, I was woken up shortly after eleven by the apparition of Daniel hovering over me, not sure how to say good night to me when I was pretty well asleep – he was apologetic about startling me awake, too – which led to me preparing myself for a proper night’s rest, so maybe that re-started the sleep clock.

But upon waking up to a bedroom full of reflected daylight, I came to the conclusion that it was considerably later than I’m accustomed to doing so. Sure enough, it was… well past six-thirty.

Feel free to laugh; I know you could stay in bed until nine o’clock had come and gone, but after all, you had been up until as late as three or even five in the morning before dragging yourself off to the bedroom. With that in mind, staying in bed until then would barely get you six hours of sleep (although you would probably have gotten a few hours in the family room as you nodded off in spite of yourself). Still, to hear me say this hour was “sleeping in” for me, well… as much as you would have agreed with the assessment, I’m sure you would just as easily found it very funny.

Heck, if you were aware of me crawling out of bed at that hour – especially now that you know I don’t have to be anywhere in turns of a work schedule – I wonder if you wouldn’t try to drag me back into bed with you at some point; a sort of revenge for all the times when I would do the same to you when you would wake me up back at your parents’ place all those years ago. Not likely, though; you’d learned to ignore my alarm when I would get up to go to work, so now that I’m rising even without such assistance, I would likely be able to depart your presence without your knowledge on any given morning with ease. It’s a cute scene to imagine, though.

I wonder how much of my coming and going you’re aware of now, seeing as to how you’re outside of time these days. If you are keeping an eye on me, maybe you actually know when I’m getting up and getting out these days. Regardless, keep it up, honey, and continue to wish me luck, as I’m sure I’m going to need it.