To bed, or not to bed, that is the question.
At least, that is often the question for me, as I have experienced periodic bouts of insomnia for about the past 8 years.
I've always LOVED being in bed... it's like a place you can go and just sprawl out and totally relax, a refuge from the world, an escape. I love sleeping... I'm not one of those people who can actually get by on 4 hours a night; nope, I need a bare minimum of 6 1/2 to be functional the next day but 7+ is even better, and usually I'm just about hitting the 8-hour mark even when I don't need to set the alarm clock and can wake up naturally.
I had a double bed as a very little girl, back in the days of my alligator nightmares. Then when my sister came along and got a little older, my parents decided we could share a room, freeing up the other bedroom for a sewing room or something for my mother. So we both got twin beds. And I had that twin bed until I was old enough to start working and I bought myself a double bed again -- my first big adult purchase.
Years passed, and that double bed lasted me a long time... then about 10 years ago I upgraded myself to a queen-sized bed. At the time I was in a serious relationship with a rather tall man and having that few extra inches of space in the bed made us both even more comfortable. Along with the new mattress set I also got all new bedroom furniture -- my first ever matching bedroom set that didn't require instructions, an Allen wrench and a trip to Ikea. I got one of those big off-the-floor traditional 4-posters that I literally had to climb into... one moving man called it the "princess in the pea" bed, it was so high (because of course, my new mattress set was one of those super-thick ones, and I topped it all of with a big fluffy comforter).
THAT, for a long time, was my dream bed. I spent a bundle on the mattress set and the furniture, and it was SO comfortable. The only thing really missing were 400-count sheets, which I couldn't afford (and still can't). But otherwise it was wonderful.
Oh, and the boyfriend? Not long after I got the new bed, we broke up. We'd been together over a year, my longest-term relationship ever and the first time I ever had a man "sleeping over" on a regular basis, although we were not living together. So I had gone from sleeping alone for most of my life and liking having the whole bed to myself, to learning how to fall asleep with someone else in the space next to me, to LIKING having someone sleeping in the space next to me, to going back to square one and having to get comfortable taking up the whole bed again. But used to it I got, and once again came to love having the bed all to myself again. Well, most of the time, anyway.
The insomnia problem started in earnest around the time I became self-employed. I'm no shrink but I'm guessing there's no coincidence there, that I simply have more to think about and worry about and therefore there are nights when I either cannot get to sleep at all, or if I do get to sleep I wake up at 3 or 4 or 5 in the morning and can't get back to sleep afterward. Rarely do I get a straight, full 8 hours of uninterrupted bliss.
Being self-employed, I no longer need to punch a time clock or report for work at a certain hour, so rarely do I need to set the alarm. Consequently I've gotten into the bad habit of staying up late (sometimes until 2am) watching TV, and even if I am bone tired I sometimes resist going to sleep. I'm not sure why... what am I afraid of? I never used to have anxiety about going to sleep at night. Maybe it's partly being at that peri-menopause age, too... it's a common symptom. Mostly I just try to make up any lost sleep with a nap when I can.
In the 18 months since I've been living back at my mother's house again, the bed I'm sleeping in now is not so great. My mother already had my old bedroom furnished and it didn't make sense to try and replace her furniture with my own, so my bed went into storage with most of the other things I own (I did bring along my own comforter to make it seem more like "me" in the room). And then last fall I sold the bed and the bedroom furniture. After 10 years, my tastes had changed, and the mattress wasn't so comfortable anymore (which frankly, kind of pissed me off considering how much I spent on it; it should have held up better than that especially with only ONE person sleeping on it for much of its lifespan). Finding a suitable buyer, I decided it was a good opportunity to get rid of it while I could and it would be less stuff to keep in storage. After all, when I move to France I am not planning to ship any furniture, not unless I eventually decide to take up permanent residence there someday. And if I need a new bed I can always buy one depending upon where I end up settling.
So, I'm sleeping on a borrowed bed that has seen better days. It creaks. It's a double, not a queen-sized (and it's amazing that it really DOES make a difference). It's not all that comfortable and some days my back and neck suffer for it. But it's what I've got available to me right now.
Instead of complaining, I like to remember that there are SO many people in the world who do NOT have a decent bed to sleep in or a roof over their heads. And that if I didn't have people who cared about me enough to let me live with them while I'm saving up for my dream, I might be one of those bedless, roofless, homeless people.
So although I dream of a day when I can once again purchase the PERFECT, ULTIMATE BED (maybe a wrought-iron frame or a maple sleigh bed, maybe this time with those 400 count sheets and a silk comforter, looking like a spread in a magazine), in the meantime my temporary bed will do just fine. Insomnia or no insomnia.
And I will continue to dream while sleeping in it... dreams of at last living in Paris and sleeping in a delightful little apartment in Saint-Germain-des-Près. (Dare I hope... with a delightful man at my side? Oh, la la!)
