Gracefully getting older has its down side. I used to enjoy interruption-free nights of unadulterated sleep but all of that has changed. I have tried to reset my internal alarm clock but I still find myself waking, usually around 3:30 each morning, and playing the familiar game of find the bathroom in the dark. If I have to be awake at that insane hour, I’m not going to assault my senses by turning the lights on.
And it doesn’t matter if I have made the preemptive strike and visited the loo just before I crawl into bed for the night, the gentle reminder that I am no longer in my 20’s drags me from my slumber. I generally lie in bed hoping the call of nature will stop but there is no answering machine and that call just keeps ringing incessantly until I answer it. When I finally return to bed I become a victim of my brain while my bladder falls back into its own deep sleep.
I have yet to find the switch that activates every functioning neuron in my head as soon as I wake up. Those neurons jump into hyper-drive and begin to organize my thoughts into categories. The first is usually work. I go through what I expect to accomplish the next day at my job. Those thoughts become more creative and morph into ideas for blog posts. Thankfully I have a voice recorder on my phone so I can trap those ideas before they dissipate into the still air that I should be inhaling gently as I sleep!
I’m not sure when it happened. I didn’t get the memo that my body was ready to start playing tricks on me. I wasn’t prepared and had no way to defend myself from the attack.
I am going to construct a heart-felt letter to my bladder in the hope that it will rethink its nightly call and read it out loud tomorrow morning at 3:30 when I am lying in bed, wide awake, with nothing better to do!
The body does like to betray us!! I listen to the Classic Tales podcast to get to sleep; it works because the stories are not usually my cup of my tea, so I drift off in boredom 🙂
You know I think the world of you, Susan, but this post might be moving into “Too Much Information” territory. 😉
Lol – I’ll be more discreet in the next post!!
Nah. Don’t you go changin’.
Just to please you? Haha
Can you include my bladder in your letter! 🙂
Absolutely!!
Happens to us all.
Maybe it is too much information but it made me feel less alone in my 3:30 predicament!
I have this issue too now, but I read somewhere that it’s better for your body if you get up and walk around in the night once or twice. Apparently humans never used to sleep 8 hours straight like we do now. Take heart. You could be preventing blood clots by increasing your circulation. Who knows?
That’s a great way to look at it!