"Language, as well as the faculty of speech, was the immediate gift of God." ~ Noah Webster



Thursday, June 19, 2014

I Will Take Eight!

Do you ever read those articles in the local paper that feature one of our successful, outstanding citizens? The article is usually in the “Lifestyles” section and I believe it is called “Snapshot”. I usually always stop to read these exposes and typically, I enjoy them.

Anyway, the paper prints a photo of the person featured and then asks a series of questions, printing their answers. The questions are not always the same. Naturally, many of the questions have to do with topics in direct correlation to the person’s occupation or whatever it is for which they have been chosen to be interviewed. But there is one question that is always and consistently asked of each interviewee, and that is “How many hours of sleep do you get a night?”

I have always kind of laughed about this. Almost every person, without fail, answers with a number less than 8 hours. There are a few really wise people that will answer 8 hours. But it almost seems like it has been some kind of competition that would reveal the less hours of sleep one gets in a night, the more successful one must be.

I believe I have read some state they get only 4 hours of sleep on an average. And of course there are a lot of 6 hour responses. I just want to say “WHATEVER! How many naps do you take every day?”

I’m not saying they are fudging their answers…I mean who am I to say? I require at least 8 hours every night! And sometimes I prefer 9! But that’s just me. One could probably assume from that, if based on everyone else’s response, that I am not successful.  WHATEVER! I just want to get a good night’s rest!

I find the older I get the more difficult that is. I don’t fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow anymore. Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night with pain in my hip or back. I’m always up at the crack of dawn, whether I was able to meet my 9:30 pm retirement deadline or not. But I do like to sleep.

I am not one for daytime naps. My husband and son would argue that. They think I always fall asleep the minute we are driving somewhere of any distance in the car, and without fail they tell me I fall asleep the minute we all sit down to watch television and the movie begins. I guess that is true.  But generally speaking I don’t like naps. They leave me feeling more exhausted and out of sorts. And then I always feel like I have wasted precious hours when I could be getting something accomplished.
 
The other day, however, I purposefully laid down for a nap. I slept two hours! And then the day after that, I laid down for a morning nap at 10:30 and slept for an hour; and then I laid down again in the afternoon for another hour nap. Yikes! What is that all about?

I slept again, yesterday, just after sitting down to O’Reilly at 5:00 pm. "I haven’t been feeling well," I rationalized. Every muscle in my body has been aching for a week!  Well, a good deal more than the usual aches and pains, that is. "I’m reallllly not feeling well," I realized. I’m out of sorts! Sniffles and sore throat for 3 or 4 days, now; extra sleep has been a necessity! I really don't feel well!! I have been thankful for the rainy days, so that I had an excuse to not work outside. I guess the Lord knew, too.

But anyway, I woke up to hacking in the middle of O’Reilly! "That feels like a cold!" I told myself in wonderment. So I went to bed early.  Woke up in the night, with a cough burning deep in my chest; that’s when it hit me knowing that I know, “I have a cold!!”

I fell back to sleep, pleased that now I had an answer to why I hadn’t been feeling well this week and sleeping so much. I awoke this morning feeling not a bit refreshed, but with a headache, and cough and a stuffed up head. "Oh yeah, it’s a cold," I realized. Sometimes I guess I am a bit of slow learner.

I guess I will never be one of those successful people that only require 4 - 6 hours of sleep if it takes me five days and extra sleep to fully comprehend that I have a cold.
 
I will take 8!

Ahhhh, sleep now. ;-)
 

 

 

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