Jet Lag

It was 2:33 am when she went to bed. Her lids were heavy but her heart was filled with an enthusiasm that could have kept her up for a couple more hours. Even she didn’t understand where that came from.

She crawls into bed. He is there. Instinctively he will turn on his side, if he is not already, to let her snuggle up to him. She’s cold but soon she will be warm.

As soon as her arms are around him she falls asleep. It will be three hours until she wakes up again. Rested. She thinks it must be around 9 am but it’s not. It’s only 5 am. Now she can’t get back to sleep. If she lies on her back her neck gets stiff. If she lies on her side, her arm falls asleep, if she lies on her belly, her shoulder kinks and she can’t lie near him because now he’s too hot.

His alarm goes off at 8 am. He’s slow to rise. She has been in and out of consciousness for the last few hours. He gets up and immediately she asks him how he slept.

“Well, I think.”

“I’ve slept three hours.”

When he leaves for work she gets up. She uses the bathroom and then eats some granola and yogurt. She knows she can probably go to sleep now. All she needs is weight. She turns down the heat to 19 degrees. She grabs a duvet from the other room, folds it and places it on top of the other duvet already on the bed. Just a few more hours she tells herself.

Under sheets, a blanket and two duvets, she cocoons. She’s set her clock for noon. She wakes up at 2 pm to find out that it didn’t go off. She lays in bed until 4 pm. She knows the entire day is wasted and getting up now will only depress her. If she could sleep right through until tomorrow morning, she might reverse the effects of sleep but it’s not going to happen.

She gets up, showers, and answers a call from her husband who will be home in a couple hours and expect dinner ready. She goes downstairs and puts on a load of laundry and then heads out the door to by chillies for tonight’s dinner. At the store she spends some time picking up toilet paper and stocking up on birthday cards, 50% off.

When she gets back to the apartment, it’s dark outside and he’s already home, standing in his underwear. It takes her an hour to prepare dinner­–broccoli and steak stir fry. He hangs up the laundry and loads a television show for her to watch later.

She makes some tea and sits down with ¾ bar of chocolate to watch her T.V. drama.

She returns some emails and decides it’s important to write something down today. But she hasn’t found a  reason for doing something if she can’t do it well.

While she’s writing she starts to yawn. This is a good sign. She hasn’t had any coffee today. Maybe she will sleep through the night but it’s too early to tell. If she reads this over later, it will put her to sleep for sure.