Sleep Deprivation

For 4 years of Architecture school I labored under a self hung motivational sign, “Sleep is for the weak”. There’s a certain raw pride in staying up 72 hours voluntarily, not to mention the very real, all-natural disorientation that served as the poor man’s version of being drunk. By far the best part of it all, besides the pride in knowing you just did something few people sitting next to you on the bus have just done, was the call of that bed, or in some cases hallway floor if I forgot my keys again (I was tired, don’t judge me).

The other night however, for no apparent reason, sleep just wouldn’t come. Wasn’t worried about anything in particular, hadn’t had too much coffee; Walter was comfortably curled up behind my knees under the blanket. Corrie wasn’t even snoring. Just couldn’t sleep.

With nothing to do at 2:00 am, I decided to make the best of an annoying situation by watching “A very Long Engagement”. If French subtitles don’t put me under, not much would. My luck, it just happened to be one of the better movies I’d seen in years, and was still awake at 4:30.

(If you liked "Amelie", or was one of the 10 people out there that saw “City of Lost Children”, this one blows them both away. But I digress.)

The price you pay for not sleeping only gets paid the next day. Thankfully it was the weekend, but even sleeping until 7:00 before Walter got me up wasn’t enough to break out of what was going to be a daylong funk. The whole routine started breaking down. Took a nap around 11:00, but still felt out of sorts the rest of the day. Couldn’t motivate very well to do anything but stumble downstairs to flip the laundry every now and then. Had to call the day a wash and just start over again tomorrow.

Except soon tomorrow will be another baby day. We’re staring into the face of something much more sinister than insomnia, much more pressing than a design deadline. There’s nothing voluntary about waking up at 3:00 to change a diaper. There’s no “next day” to look forward to for a chance to recover. What appeared to be a Buda like tranquility on new parents, attributed in my mind to a blessed grace children can bestow, now seems more like the hollowed out face of hopeless, endless weariness, tempered with joy to be sure, but the result of putting your body through a regimen it was not designed to take.

At least we aren’t having twins at the age of 60. (No need to reveal who that might be publicly)