TO SLEEP, PERCHANCE

My husband Tom and I have always had our differences. 

Take, for instance, sleep.

When we got married, I moved into Tom’s townhouse, an hour’s drive from where I worked, and joined his crazy morning routine. “You’ll shower while I shave,” he told me, and then I’ll shower while you dry your hair.” Sounds reasonable, but – and this is a big but – we were getting up at five in the morning. Not just once in a while. Not just for a few weeks for some special project. No, this was going to be every single weekday, up at five a.m. to the dulcet tones of a classical music station.

“I can’t wake up if it’s just music. I need an alarm,” I said.

“The music is enough,” he insisted. “I always wake up to music.”

At five in the morning.

But I don’t think it was the music that woke me. No, it was the sudden flood of blinding light when Tom jumped out of bed and flipped the light switch at the first note of Bach or Haydn or Saint Saens.

Those first months of our marriage, I was horribly sleep-deprived. Not only did my wonderful new husband get up before the roosters, he also stayed up with the owls. I may be the only newlywed wife who had to beg her husband to come to bed, and he’s probably the only newlywed husband who habitually wasn’t ready to turn in yet.

What did he want to do instead of going to bed? Oh, watch something interesting on television, if there was anything interesting, or read a book, or listen to music; great ideas, but not if you’re falling-asleep-on-your-feet tired.

 I actually managed to stay awake through most episodes of “Paradise Postponed,” the Masterpiece Theater offering that fall. The program was over by ten o’clock, so we could hurry brushing teeth, and get into bed by, what, 10:15, maybe?

No way.

My husband has the largest classical music collection known to humankind, which is a wonderful thing, mostly. But after ten p.m., when I was desperate for a good night’s sleep, it was hard to appreciate that he wanted to listen to music before turning in. He’d select an album, place it on the turntable, set it spinning, squirt a drop of liquid onto his special little cleaning tool, run it across the record’s surface, carefully set the stylus to come down precisely where he wanted, and settle down on the couch, a beagle at his side.

That delayed bedtime at least a half hour.

Then it was time to take the dog out. Tom would put on his jacket, zip it up, get Cleo’s leash, fasten it to her collar, tell her that he was taking her out so that she could be a good, clean, honest, puppy dog beagle girl. (Why honest, I don’t know, but that’s what he said.) When they went out the door, and I would dash upstairs to get ready for bed. Twenty minutes later, I was ready, but, more often than not, he was still downstairs with the dog. If we were lucky, we’d get to bed by quarter past eleven.

Quarter past eleven! And I had to get up in less than six hours!

I worked as a therapist. I needed to be alert and attentive, sensitive and perceptive. I had always made sure that I got a good night’s sleep, so that I would be at my best during therapy sessions. After a month or two of married life, I wasn’t sure I had a “best” to be at anymore.

As we moved into the fifth month of our marriage, I got pregnant, and things became markedly worse. I was already tired, and suddenly the fatigue was ever so magnified. Most nights after we’d eaten and done the dishes, I’d fall asleep on the couch. I’d be out cold, and suddenly I’d be awakened by Cleo’s excited barking when she and Tom went out for their usual evening excursion. I’d drag myself upstairs, get ready for bed, and curse the clock.

With children, some things changed. I was awake in an instant at the sound of a baby crying, and could get up multiple times without cursing. Although I stopped working, I continued rising early to have breakfast with Tom before he left for work. But if I was exhausted, I could catch a little more sleep after he left, if the baby wasn’t up yet.

Sleep deprived still? Well, yes, but going without sleep for a baby seemed different. And anyway, I could nap when the baby napped. Tom never naps.

One of my early illusions about my husband was that, given a shorter commute, he would get up at a more reasonable hour. No. Even the rare times when he’s been working close to home, he’s up in the wee hours. But no matter how early an employer wants him to get up, he’s willing. For a while, although we lived in the Philadelphia suburbs, he worked for a company headquartered in New York, and sometimes needed to attend meetings in Manhattan at eight in the morning. He did what any crazy person would do. He’d go to bed at about eleven fifteen, then get up at three in the morning, go through his usual routine at his usual leisurely pace, and catch a train at something like five in the morning  to get him to New York in time for his meeting. No, he couldn’t just do things faster so he’d be able to sleep a little later. And yes, the dog did seem surprised about her middle-of-the night walk, and was seldom, as he’d tell me, “productive” at 3:30 a.m.

I love him, but this man drives me crazy. What’s more, these days, going to bed at 11:15 at night isn’t good enough for him. He still gets up at five, but we often don’t even go upstairs to get ready for bed until eleven thirty or later.

I can’t stand the lack of sleep. So, although we go to bed at the same time, Tom and I don’t get up at the same time. We have only one alarm clock in our room, and resetting the alarm for me, although doable, does disrupt his routine, so I don’t like to ask him to do it.

Because he likes his routine: alarm at five, shower, dress for dog walking, enjoy that morning walk with said dog, make breakfast, listen to music, do his weight lifting exercises, and then back upstairs to brush teeth, change into his suit, and so on. I, meanwhile, am sleeping. All I ask him is, could you please wake me up in the morning when you come back upstairs.

For years, his way of doing that was to tell me about his morning walk with the dog. So, I, sound asleep, would gradually become aware of someone talking quietly in the room, telling me such things as, “Daisy had a double header this morning. It’s a good thing I had an extra bag with me.” Or, “The neighbors’ dogs barked at Gracie so much,  she wouldn’t go. Keep an eye on her, because she may need to go out suddenly.”

I told Tom that my morning shouldn’t start with stories of dog poop before I even get out of bed.

So he began waking me, or so he said, by telling me something else. What, I can’t tell you, because I usually slept through it. Once in a while, I’d become vaguely aware of someone quietly mumbling nearby. If I opened my eyes, I’d find it was Tom, telling me something like what temperature it was outside, or whether rain was expected.

Not once did he ever do anything helpful, such as saying my name, and telling me in a gentle but firm voice that it was time to get up.

So, I explained to him this wasn’t working. People pay more attention when you call them by name, I told him. He’d need to call me by name.  For some reason, this was a strange idea.

Didn’t your mother do that when she woke you when you were a little boy? I asked.

I don’t remember her waking me, he said. I remember an alarm clock.

Hmmm.

I gave instructions. I gave directions. I even suggested a script.

Nope. He can’t do it. He tries, but he can’t do it. Okay, he has managed to stop waking me with stories about dog poop, but that’s about as far as it’s gone.

His best effort now, when he comes back upstairs, and after he brushes his teeth, is this: he’ll stand next to the bed, buttoning his dress shirt, and say quietly, are you getting up, Kate?

According to him, I sometimes murmur unintelligibly, sometimes say no, but usually agree to get up. I may tell him to have a good day, or drive carefully on his way to work, or to Princeton or the airport, or to wherever the heck he’s going that day. I don’t remember anything about it, though, because I’m still asleep. 

Sometime after he’s left, I wake in a frenzy: late getting up again!

He doesn’t understand what my problem is, so here it is: I like to sleep, and he doesn’t.

That, and he hasn’t the faintest idea how to wake someone.

     ~ Kate Lydon Varley