Nightime Rituals

I love sleeping with my husband. No this isn't that post. I don't mean in that sexy, sexy way. I love curling up next to his body. We aren't cuddlers, but some part of our bodies is almost always touching. A hand to a shoulder, a foot to a calf. Having this nighttime companion is one of the true blessings of marriage. The last thing we do every single night before we settle down to sleep is kiss and say I LOVE YOU. Even when we're mad. It is our ritual. Then we each roll to our sides of the bed. Neil puts on his eye mask and I settle in for some reading.

I am a troublesome sleeper. Nighttime is not the right time for me. I much prefer to get my z's during daylight hours. Unfortunately, my lifestyle (read: a morning person toddler. Why me, god, why?) does not permit this, so I attempt to conform. This means that while I lay down at the same time as my husband, it is usually hours before I fall asleep. The upside to this is that I get in some good reading time. The downside is that no matter what time I go to bed, the child is up at 6:30, raring to go. Most of the time, despite my nocturnal tendencies, I get by. There are often naps involved, but whatever it takes to get through the day, I always say.

Last night, I was awakened at 3am by my bladder, because if it's not the child, it's gotta be something. After a dark trip to the bathroom, I returned to bed and lay there. And lay there. And lay there. Sleep would not find me.

This went on for at least an hour, during which time I wished like anything that I could just turn on the light and read. But Neil is a light sleeper, hence the eye mask when I am reading at bedtime. If I were to turn the light on it would wake him up, something I am loathe to do, because if I am a bad morning person, he is a bad woken-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night person. So I lay there. And composed blog posts in my head. A frustrating activity because in that moment I am creating the blog version of War and Peace but when I attempt to recreate it the next day I cannot reconstruct the perfect phrasings that flowed so easily the night before.

It is these times that I miss the single lifestyle. I miss not worrying about waking anyone up when I can't sleep. I miss being able to roam about the entire bed. I miss being able to wrap myself up in all of the covers. Or conversely to sleep on top of them.

But the truth is that these moments of nostalgia are fleeting. Even as I wished I could turn on the light, my eyes were getting heavy. I stretched my leg out and hooked my foot over Neil's ankle. Asleep, as when we are awake, we are connected. I'll trade a few dark, sleepless hours for that any day.