Nostalgia and Thoughts: Sleep Thieves

0
485

I guess there are sleep thieves that attack us our whole life but it seems like they are more noticeable when we reach a certain age. Okay, I have arrived at that certain age, a few years ago to be exact, but I sure miss sleeping through the whole night like I used to.

While I was still a kid and living with my parents the first sleep thief in my life was my mother. She didn’t think we should sleep past 8 in the morning no matter what we had been doing the night before. Even after a slumber party with the girls where we didn’t go to bed until after 4 in the morning, there was no sleeping when I got home.

Mom thought I should get all my chores done before I was allowed to take a nap. Boy could I sleep the night after a slumber party because I was really tired and I’m not sure the bed was even messed up the next morning. It was one of those nights I’d drop into bed and not move a muscle until the next morning when the sleep thief came in to wake me up again.

During the time I was in Cosmetology school the thief was an alarm clock. Our teachers didn’t take kindly to us being late to class and it only took one time getting chewed out in front of the class and assigned extra work to get that point across to us.

I roomed with another girl in Cosmetology school and we had to set the alarm clock in another room so we had to get out of bed to turn it off. We did that because we didn’t wake up the first morning it went off by the bed. One of us just turned it off and went back to sleep. I remember the first morning of Cosmetology school because it was the first and only time we were late for class.

That morning we were jolted awake by a very large shoe hitting the wall between our apartment and the next one and a few choice words from the guy in the other apartment. After that rude awakening we moved the clock farther away from us so we had to get out of bed to shut it off. We made sure one of us jumped out of bed and shut it off quickly before the guy next door started throwing things at the wall.

After cosmetology school I spent some time living with my parents and working in the town they lived in and mom took over being the sleep thief again. Mom really enjoyed her work as the sleep thief and waking us up in the mornings. Her sleep thief was the family dog that wanted to go out and then she had to get dad up for work and then all of us kids so we could get to school or in my case to the salon to do hair.

When I got married the role transferred to me and I became the sleep thief in our house to get us both up when he was working in town and not on the road traveling for work. It was back to hearing the alarm clock blaring in the mornings to steal my sleep.

When we got married I could still sleep through the night without getting up for anything. What ever happened to those days is a mystery to this brain and body of mine that is old enough to retire but is not sure how it got to this stage in life.

About 20 years ago we adopted our first cocker spaniel, Lady, and 10 years later, after we lost Lady, our second cocker spaniel Lacy. Each of them became the sleep thief when they moved in. Just like my mother, they thought there should not be any sleeping late. At that point I quit setting the alarm clock because they were going to get me up at the same time it would have woke me up.

There was no yelling for me to get up when the cockers were the sleep thieves they would just bounce up on the side of the bed or jump in the middle of me to wake me up. Once I was awake they didn’t want to cuddle they wanted me out of bed so they could go outside and then have breakfast. You could have set a clock by those two little sleep thieves.

Now that I am retired I could sleep in like I have always wanted to but after all the years of being woke up by alarm clocks and sleep thieves I wake up at the time the alarm clock went off every day. Plus my body is a traitor now and I am awake two to three times in the night so it is also a thief now.

One of the sleep thieves now is Art, arthritis, and he is a real pain. I can’t roll over or change positions without waking up. Then I have to try and get comfortable so I can go back to sleep. So where is the justice in that; you have arrived at the time in your life where you could sleep as late as you want and your body won’t let you.

If there are sleep thief police I would love to find their phone number. I need them to come and arrest the sleep thieves in my house so I can sleep without waking up during the night and be able to sleep past the time the alarm used to go off. To contact Sandy: [email protected]

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here