Monday Musings...A Love Affair...

~ And if tonight my soul may find her peace in sleep, and sink in good oblivion, and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created. ~

D.H. Lawrence

It's a love, I am told, that I spurned from my earliest days, the seduction of which I fought against and often won.  The rejection of this love's affections continued through my childhood and on into my early adulthood.  Anyone trying to force my hand to accept its blessings would be greeted with howls of outrage and assurances that the bounty of this suitor were completely unneeded and unwanted.  In those brief sessions of yielding to its temptations, I would only succumb most grudgingly. Through college and my career days of radio and television, the calls and attentions of this wooer were inconvenient.  I didn't have time to deal with the constant beguiling.  Romance of this sort took too long, was too disruptive to the goals I needed to accomplish.  And yet, it continued, this persistent paramour.



I yielded too late, it seems.  It was after the birth of my first child that I realized the deep affection and need I had developed.  And by that point, my cooing cavalier had started to avoid me, leaving me to navigate the nights on my own.  Through several more newborns and young children and daily stresses and worries blossoming in twilight, I came to appreciate more and more the advantages this spurned suitor had at one time proposed.  After this beau's early pursuit of me for twenty some-odd years and now in my pursuit during the last eighteen, we have been reunited again, an unrequited love, now requited.



I speak, of course, about Sleep.



Ah, Sleep.  You ask so little of me but time.  And yet I have so often accused you of being meddling and demanding.  Forgive my foolish youth, thinking that you were a waste.  I see so clearly now the ease of your affections, the rejuvenation I experience after spending time with you.  Now that the twins have taken to a regular bedtime, now that my postpartum physique has admitted to its deep need for you, I find a romance again rekindled.  How amazing you are.  How you make me forget the troubles of the day.  And how you can transform my haggard, exhausted appearance into a (sort of, kind of) dewy complexion, fresh with the morning's dawn (sort of, kind of).  How you change me, refresh me.  And I find my need for you growing, my appetite for your affections enlarging.  When I have but a handful of moments in the afternoon, I slip away, pretending to fold laundry, to be tenderly held in your somnolent embrace.  Our stolen moments are all the sweeter.  They sustain me until we can meet again.



Tonight, I hope.



And I will try to avoid again the whispered lies of your rival, the one who tells me you are unnecessary, that you can be conquered, that I am the weaker for loving you.  Look at the latest note I received...

Sleep is a symptom of caffeine deprivation. ~Author Unknown

Disturbing, I know.  But I will try to resist.

But I'm still gonna drink coffee.  Just trying to be honest, my dear Sleep.

And now, Dear Readers, it's your turn.  Confess to me your relationship with Sleep.  Come on, you can tell me.  Are you a fan, have you had enough, do you find Sleep overrated?  How many hours a night do you need, do you crave, do you usually get?  Feel free to write you own post on this topic and post the url and your name in the Mister Linky box below or leave a comment.  Let's hear it, you closet somnambulists!