Sleep

I don’t sleep. I never have. When I was a little girl, I remember lying in my bed until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and finally going downstairs to my parents in tears. Then I’d get to lie in bed with my dad and watch TV. Somehow I’d end up asleep, I assume in my bed, because I don’t remember ever waking up in my parents’ bed. Mainly, though, I remember not sleeping.

First I go to bed and don’t sleep. I lie awake, thoughts running through my head. Sometimes I just lie there with an empty head, but I still don’t sleep.

Then I wake in the middle of the night and don’t sleep. I’ve stopped looking at the clock because it’s too depressing, so now I don’t know when it is, I only know that I’m not sleeping. I used to get up and read in the guestroom for hours, till my eyes were closing and I could finally sleep, but only for a bit.

Too early in the morning, I don’t sleep either. I don’t quite wake up, but I don’t sleep. I lie in bed, too awake to be asleep, but too stuporous to get up. I wish I were asleep.

And now my children don’t sleep. After many years, M finally goes to sleep by herself at bedtime, but then she wakes up in the night (I don’t know when, I don’t look at the clock) and comes into our room. Not every night, but just about: five, six nights out of seven, ten out of eleven.

For a long time we just let her come in our bed. Then for a short time I would take her back to her bed and check on her every five minutes till she fell asleep. Which took a long time, I don’t know how long because I don’t look at the clock, but I’d check on her again and again and she’d just look up at me, sad and awake. Now I take her back to her room and lie down with her and she falls asleep more quickly, but I don’t sleep.

E was a good sleeper till she was two, but then six months of ear infections changed that. Now every night at bedtime I lie down with her--she only wants me--and she takes forever to fall asleep. Sometimes I sleep then--it’s nice in her bed--but it’s too early to sleep so I get up and then I don’t sleep.

These days she wakes up in the night too. I settle M back to sleep and then I go back to my bed and there’s E, so I take her in our bed or go back to her bed with her. If I go back to her bed, I often sleep--it’s nice in her bed--but then I wake up and come back to our bed and don’t sleep.

Sometimes, maybe every few days, I sleep and sleep and sleep, catching up.

Long ago I remember a friend saying that I loved sleep more than anyone she knew. Yes, I said, that’s because I never do.

I don’t recommend it.