We had painters working in our house this week and their schedules were diametrically opposed to mine. My wife Jenny let them in the house every morning at 7 AM and I would come out a few hours later (whenever the baby woke me up).
They had a hard time comprehending that my 18-month-old daughter and I happily sleep as late into the morning as possible.
She’s a lot like me. Both of us love nothing more than BEING asleep and hate nothing more than GOING to sleep. No matter how much I know I’ll enjoy sleeping, I naturally resist it.
I’m the same way with swimming; it’s one of my favorite things to do. But I’ll stand shivering knee-high on the pool stairs for a good long while before finally jumping in.
I do this every time even though I know I’ll enjoy it so much more the second my head’s underwater.
If that doesn’t make sense to you, neither will my relationship with sleep.
I was diagnosed with chronic insomnia when I was eighteen, which I thought was just a ruse to make my appearance before my high school’s attendance review committee easier, but turned out to be the tip of an iceberg that would have me seeing countless sunrises from the wrong side of the alarm clock.
If you’ve ever gotten an email from me that was sent before 11 AM, I wrote it the night before but waited to send it as soon as I woke up so I didn’t look insane.
During short summer nights, I’m more likely to fall asleep to the sound of birds singing than to the sound of crickets chirping. I’m perfectly fine with this setup but most people are not.
We have a sleep-shame culture. Who among us hasn’t greeted a later-waking housemate with a smirk and some variation of “look who’s finally up!”?
Living an alternative sleep-schedule life subjects me to constant ridicule. My college dorm mates used to bet on what time I’d wake up even though I stayed up later than each and every one of them and never once bet on what time they’d weakly tap out.
Even my own mother delighted in saying, “good afternoon” when I slept in passively pointing out that she found it ludicrous that I’d purposefully snooze right through the hours she found most important.
These guilt trips worked on me in my younger years causing me to question whether my lack of early-morning enthusiasm was a character flaw.
I got mad at myself every time I was late for an early-morning class or appointment viewing it as a moral failure. Then I became a student at UCONN Law School’s evening program and realized a bigger truth about myself.
Even on days when my first obligation wasn’t until 6:30 PM, I was still almost always late. That’s when I realized my problem wasn’t going to sleep too late, it was being a terrible planner.
I drastically underestimate how much time it will take me to get ready and overestimate how much urgency I’ll feel to rectify that problem.
This self-realization didn’t make me less horrible in other people’s eyes, but it uncoupled the concepts of sleep and morality in my mind.
That’s when I promised myself that (absent something truly important to do the next day) I simply wouldn’t go to bed until I was actually tired. I’d had so many restless nights watching the alarm clock slowly shift later that its ruby glow was forever seared into my consciousness.
Falling asleep is entirely absurd. Pretending I’m dead for a solid four-to-thirteen hours is the stupidest thing I do all day.
I hate that my body makes me give up consciousness so that it can breathe theatrically and move sporadically.
There’s no headboard on my bed but there’s a window with blinds directly behind where I sleep. At least twice a week I wake up with my arm tangled in the blinds.
Of course I resist falling asleep, it’s humiliating!
And to make matters worse, society dictates that I fall asleep next to my wife, the person I’ve spent years trying to woo and impress, and now regularly drool in front of just inches from her face.
It’s time for this lunacy to stop. People should be free to sleep however and whenever they want. Society needs to revisit its entire relationship with sleep to address the systemic bias favoring early birds.
One of the top questions I get about my baby is, “How does she sleep?” as if it’s anyone’s business.
Stay at a hotel and I guarantee the first question you’ll get at the continental breakfast is, “how did you sleep?”
Maybe I didn’t, “Karen.” Maybe this croissant is a late-night treat.
Maybe I was up all night thinking about how unfair it is to label annoying people “Karens” because I’ve known many lovely Karens in my life.
Stop subjecting me to your preconceived biases.
In an era re-examining society’s relationship with weighty issues like race, gender, and mail, it’s time to add one more to the list: sleep.
Just don’t make the protest for too early. Or do. Either way, I’ll probably be late.
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