I've never been good at taking naps. I'm not sure what I was like as a baby; I've been told I was a good baby, especially in comparison to my brother, who screamed like a banshee for the first 18 months of his life, but by the time I got to preschool at 3 or 4, I was apparently done napping. At least, at school. Some of my earliest memories are of naptime in my first year of preschool, when all the other kids went to their mats for a nap, my teacher, Rose, would take me with her to the infant room, where I would "help" her look after the babies, during what I now imagine was the infant teacher's break. My little brother hadn't even been born yet, so I didn't have any baby practice, but I loved these trips to the baby room with my teacher. I don't know how often they happened, if it was every time or just sometimes, but it was a core memory for sure. I did once ask my mother as an adult if my memory was that I was her Very Special Helper was wrong and that the truth was I was just being annoying during naptime so she wanted me out of the room so I didn't wake the other kids - I went to school for education, I've been in plenty of classrooms where you sometimes have to tell little white lies to the busier kids to avoid disruption - but she assures me that Rose loved me and enjoyed having me be her little helper.
In Kindergarten, I remember having whispered conversations with my friend as we scooted our cots closer and closer together. My Kindergarten had two rooms, and as we slowly transitioned out of naptime, awake kids would go into the other room. Once I remember pretending to be asleep to see what happened when you weren’t the first kid up, and they must have been shocked I was sleeping because they left me there for what felt like ages. It was kind of cool and a little spooky to be left alone in an empty, dark classroom.
The closest I ever came to being a good napper was in college, but that's mostly because what frayed thread of a sleep schedule I had in high school went out the window, and I slept in 2-4 hour chunks whenever I could. Between school, work, and friendship activities, I was just constantly de-prioritizing sleep. I genuinely remember doing constant sleep math and if there was ever a day I could get 5-6 hours of sleep, I would be like "sweet, I can sleep in, what a luxury." I considered our hours a "full rest" like some sort of high elf. And yet, if I couldn't get at least 2 hours, I didn't even bother lying down. I was always envious of people who could sneak in and feel refreshed by a 30 minute cat nap, because 30 minutes wasn't even enough time to START revving my brain down to sleep. (Still isn't, to be honest.) My friend Nic is a nap queen and can fall asleep anywhere, any time, almost instantly, no matter what is going on - and always seems refreshed afterwards, even if she is only out for 15 minutes. We joke that it’s her superpower, and she often laments not being able to gift it to others, but honestly I am so happy she knows what she needs and how to get it and I will always keep an eye on her when she falls asleep on backless stools to make sure she doesn’t fall off. (She never has, for the record. Fallen, that is. She has, indeed, fallen asleep on backless stools. I told you it was a superpower.)
I've always had trouble falling asleep, though I didn't know it wasn't normal to have to trick your brain into turning off enough to sleep until I was an adult. Hell, I didn’t even know it wasn’t normal to wake up multiple times a night until like five years ago. I thought everyone had hyper-realistic imaginary scenarios they distracted their brain with until it tired itself out. Even counting sheep wouldn't really work, because I would get distracted and forget what number I was on or that I was supposed to be counting at all. I knew I was always the last to fall asleep at sleepovers, but I assumed that was FOMO-related. I had a lot of nightmare as a kid, and my Nana always told me that if you’re having a bad dream, to flip your pillow to “change the channel,” and I remember doing that a few times a night. (I still flip my pillow after having a nightmare. It works.)
During those bursts of sleep though, I was usually out pretty cold; like my brain didn’t often shut down, but when it did it put on noise-cancelling headphones and blackout curtains. This came in handy in college, because aforementioned sleep bursts could happen at any time of day or night, and so could dorm activity. I don't know how restfully I sleep though, because my whole life I've been a thrasher. I never wake up in the same position I went to sleep in, I often wake up with my blankets tangled at my feet or on the floor. I usually fall asleep holding Wishbear gently in my arms but Tenderheart only knows where she’ll end up by morning light. I've gone to sleep with socks on and woken up without them, I've woken up with my head at the foot of my bed without any memory of flipping. Last time I was in Boston, my mother said she came into the guest room to get something in the morning while I was asleep and I was completely sideways with my legs hanging off the side of the bed. And I also don't think I've ever had a full night without a dream (or a nightmare.)
Now that I'm in my 30s and not quite as good at functioning on less than 6 hours of sleep, but still a very nocturnal person who has a hard time falling asleep, I am lucky to live in a state where THC and CBD are legal, so I have my bedtime gummies that help me if I've had a few tough nights in a row. (I probably should just take them every night to avoid the tough nights altogether, but gummies are expensive and I am a freelance writer, and also some stubborn part of me thinks I can :checks notes: beat this? Don't ask.) It's frustrating because some nights are fine. It takes the aforementioned 30 minutes to fall asleep and even though I clearly toss and turn and dream in the night, I still feel rested enough in the morning to go about my day. But some nights are bad, and it takes me 2 hours to fall asleep, and then I wake up multiple times and it takes another 15-30 minutes to fall back asleep each time. And while I'm sure there are certain predictors, most of the time I just don't know if it's going to be a good night or a bad night until it's too late; I also never know if it's going to be a one-off bad night or a string of them. I also never know if I'm tired because of my weird sleep patterns or because of my occasional anemia. Which is why, these days, usually after one bad night or extra tired day, I go to the gummies. I've never been diagnosed with insomnia or anything, even though I do call these instances little bouts of insomnia, and I know I am extremely lucky and privileged that gummies help at all; I know people with chronic sleep issues who aren't as lucky.
I have napped, of course. I used to fall asleep in cars as a kid, then pretend to be asleep when we got home long enough for my dad to carry me up the three flights of stairs to my room. (The day he woke me up because I was getting too big to carry was the day my childhood officially ended. Talk about core memories.) When I used to take the bus from New York to Boston and back, I would fall asleep when we hit the highway for exactly 45 minutes. I don't know why I couldn't sleep the whole time, I don't know why only 45 minutes, but that's how it was. And then there are days like today.
I had a whole different plan for this newsletter today, but then allergies happened. I don't know if it's the outside or inside allergies (the pollen is high as spring starts springing, but also I did some cleaning this weekend so there's dust in the air) but my body woke me up at 8:30am, angry as all get-out, despite the fact that I didn't fall asleep until about 2:30-3am. I woke up feeling groggy and hungover even though I haven't had anything stronger than herbal tea in days. I trudged to the bathroom and took my allergy pill and got back in bed, but I knew it was useless. I got up and worked for a little while, until eventually I went back to bed to lie down again. And the way I knew my allergies were really putting up a fight: after about 45 minutes, I actually fell asleep. For like 30 whole minutes. I woke up with a start, as I always do whenever I manage to nap, feeling slightly more human but still groggy. So I called it; no other thoughts are going to be able to form today, all I can do is complain about my body's inability to do one of the most basic of functions.
I will say though, after starting working from home full time during the pandemic, I have learned the value of rest. My sleep issues got worse in 2020, I'm sure partially due to anxiety ramping up from the constant onslaught of "unprecedented events" we've experienced in the past four years, but also partially because I wasn't moving by body nearly as much, not expending enough physical energy to tire myself out, despite how exhausted I felt. So I started taking time to get into my bed or onto my couch and just...resting. Sometimes that looks like allotting myself an hour to scroll TikTok, instead of stealing 5 minutes here and there and feeling guilty about it. Sometimes it was reading for an hour. Sometimes it was just lying in bed and listening to ASMR until I felt ready to tackle the rest of the day. These little breaks would serve as a soft reset to my day, and really helped get me back on track. Even if I didn't properly sleep, I still rested, and there was value in that.
I always joke that if I lived in the Victorian era, I would be the daughter they sent to live with a cousin for three months because I wasn't well. (Often in stories it's a cousin in the countryside, but in my case it would have to be in the city because my allergies are part of the problem here.) They would have kept me in bed like the little boy in The Secret Garden, too frail to survive the harsh, cruel world.
So I'm grateful I live here and now, in the City that Never Sleeps so I can get anything I want delivered at all hours of the night, and I am aware of having the extreme privilege of living in a state and time where I can go around the corner to a store and legally buy the very drug that has put too many (mostly Black and brown) people in prison. (And that privilege is never lost on me.) I'm thankful I live in a time where there are medicines and tinctures to help with the many things other bodies can just do on their own that mine can't. (I also have asthma; my stupid body can't even breathe on my own.) I know I spent most of this newsletter just bitching, but I really am grateful that there are at least solutions I can try. As frustrating it is to never know what my energy levels are going to be, or how I am going to sleep, or why I'm either not sleeping or tired despite feeling like I slept, I am grateful that I am finally starting to learn what it means to rest. Without having to be sent away to my cousin's house for three months.