Sleep and Why I Want It

A few nights ago—coincidentally, the night of the first day I took Alertec—I couldn’t sleep. In contrast with the periodic bouts of insomnia I’ve experienced since childhood (topic for a future blog post?), this was a why-would-anyone-ever-want-to-sleep-when-they-could-spend-the-night-reading-back-issues-of-the-New–Yorker kind of sleeplessness. The next morning was pretty OK, considering the two or so hours of actual repose I had managed in the previous twenty-four hours. The following night was much the same, though I spent most of it watching episodes of sitcoms of the early 1980s rather than catching up on my magazine of choice.

I was beginning to think that I had achieved a higher state of some kind. Perhaps I could utilize these new-found eight hours to write a novel or learn how to bake or something. But all good(?) things must come to an end. Yesterday morning, I was feeling a little queasy. By the end of the afternoon, I was, to put it lightly, not functioning at top capacity.

Then I got home, ate the take-out Thai food graciously ordered by my husband, got into bed for a “nap,” and woke up thirteen hours later.

Turns out that sleep is a glorious thing, and that I want to have it every.single.night for the rest of my life. Sorry, unwritten novel. Sorry, unbaked cookies. You’ll have to wait.