Sunday 10 July 2011

Me Vs Me: Sleep

I have a love/hate relationship with sleep.

Wait, that's not true, I pretty much adore sleep unreservedly but the love/hate relationship exists in relation to my complete lack of self control with regards to sleep.

I love the luxurious feeling of a long, relaxing lie in.

I love waking up and then choosing to roll over and snuggle back into my blankets.

But I hate that I can wake up, know that I am going to be furious with myself later for not getting up, and then still stick my head back under my pillow and make with the Zs.

Sleep-ins are excellent for when you've earned them, when you feel like pampering yourself, when you've been super-exhausted or on public holidays when you usually would be at work but aren't.

But when you have things that you want to get done, need to get done, were looking forward to having done... and you don't have time to do them because you hit the snooze button, that's where the love/hate part kicks in.

I don't know if it's a generational thing but I don't think I'll ever be one of those 'gets up at 6am every morning like clockwork even 20 years after retirement because that's what I did all my working life' people, and not just because I haven't had to get up at/before 6am for work since I finished working hospitality.

If I don't have to get up - and I mean have to with a capital H, the kind where you might get yelled at or fired or make somebody cry at their own birthday party - then I don't.

A few years ago I thought this was me choosing to live life the way I liked it, with extra sleep.

Now I feel like there's two me's, First Wake Up Me who doesn't give a damn about consequences and lives only to please herself and Second Wake Up Me who has to clean up after her.

It's not that I'm exhausted or lethargic or anything like that which might suggest that I have a medical condition that might explain this behaviour.
I'm just behaving like a jackass.

I know this is going to be difficult habit to ditch and will take a long time to shift behaviour that at this point I've been indulging in for about half of my life but I'm determined to try.

First Wake Up Me has to start pulling her own weight.

And if that means going to bed earlier, chugging water before I turn in and buying the loudest alarm clock money can buy and then putting it where I can't reach it or its power cord from my bed, then that's what I'm going to do.

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