Ironical Me

"Irony: The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning; a statement or situation where the meaning is contradicted by the appearance or presentation of the idea.

Situational irony involves an incongruity between what is expected or intended and what actually occurs." (About Grammar)

More than once in this space have I bemoaned my sleeping problems. Just over a week ago after endless nights of perhaps four to five hours of sleep, accompanied by long intervals of lying abed awake in vain hope, I decided to keep a Sleep Journal. I reasoned that I could at some point hold it in front of my doctor's eyes and that perhaps she would decided that I required (a) knockout drops; (b) a session at the sleep clinic. I mean to say that I was getting frustrated about it all.

Little did I know that I would soon be able to write here about irony with reference to that very same Sleep Journal.

You see, I haven't had a bad night of sleep since. My worst night saw me totalling about 6.5 hours, which ain't bad at all, and I have been able to claim almost 8 hours on several occasions. I've nodded off without difficulty and my intervals of wakefulness have been brief to barely existent on some nights.

Now that's irony: situational irony if you please.

But wait, there's more ...

You see, now that I am sleeping longer and deeper, I am finding myself more tired than I was previously. I am at pains to explain this but rather hope that my mind and body are trying valiantly to make up the sleep deficit that I must have accumulated and that I am not doomed to be tired all day until I begin to sleep less.

You catch the irony, didn't you? AC starts sleeping more but feels more tired.

What I'm really afraid of, however, is a third possible ironical twist, for wouldn't it be ironical that after posting about sleeping better if I were to revert as quickly as I verted? It wouldn't be at all funny, but it would be ironical.

My Morning Puzzle

Here it is, seven o'clock in the A.M., and I've completed the daily Sudoku in the morning paper. Whoda thunkit: not about completing the puzzle but doing so by 7:00?

I've never been a morning person. Certainly, the normal worker who is nighthawk by nature is forced to stumble out and about in a state of bewilderment at ungodly hours. (Or are they, in point of fact, the godly hours?) But once I retired and was able to fall into my own rhythms, I found myself staying up late and lying in a bit in the morning.

Oh, come on now. I wasn't all that bad; the lying in wasn't until noon, more like 9:00 or perhaps 10:00 in extreme cases. Although the larks among you might look askance at such sleeping in, I submit that the cause was not laziness as the wee hours would frequently find AC doing productive things. I mean to say that we owls never accuse the larks of being slothful when they retire at ridiculously early hours, so why the reverse? I can remember trying to learn the basics of Photoshop or html in those wee hours, for example when all good morning larks would be sound asleep, and it never occurred to me to think them lazy. Quite simply, my mind would frequently be humming along in great form in those after midnight hours, and it seemed wise to take advantage of it.

These days, however, although I endure nights of problematic sleep, I seldom find myself perking in those wee hours. Just last night, for example, I had to shut Dan Brown's latest wild romp through mystically symbolic adventures before midnight as my eyes were glueing beyond comfort. Sometimes, I'm now actually very tired in the evening, which was not the case just a few short years ago.

I can narrow much of the time frame of the change in waking and sleeping habits down to the past two years. When Nikki Dee was new, I would sometimes head over in the middle of the night to rock her and give Mom a few hours of rest. It wasn't all that onerous for me to do that, and the reward was great as I certainly bonded with the little tyke. However, when brother, Zach, came into this world just two years later, it was certainly fortuitous for all of us that he was a much better sleeper because Buppa no longer felt up to middle-of-the-night-rocking-sessions.

Why my switch suddenly flipped after all this time, I know not for sure, but I suspect it has to do with sleep issues. Frankly, the quality of my repose is now frequently not up to snuff, and I often find myself sleeping only on the surface. Whereas, not long ago I would, could and did stay up late, once I got to bed, I tended to sleep fairly well on most nights. Although I still enjoy some good sleeps, for the most part, it is no longer so. My best guess is that, usually, poor sleep on the previous night causes me to be tireder on the ensuing evening ... and so on in a circular pattern that is not altogether pleasing to me.

So, that's why it is noteworthy, to me and no one else, I'm sure (although I'm afflicting you with my ruminations regardless), that I completed a Sudoku by 7:00 AM this morn. It represents quite a sudden alteration in the pattern of my life. Although I find that it's not altogether disagreeable to rise and shine (or rise and puzzle as it were), please pardon this writer if he is not completely delirious with the cause of it all.

Aging and Sleeping ... Or Not

It seems that we notice changes around our decade birthdays. For many, eyes change around the age of forty. I know mine did; I had finally tried contact lenses with the prescription that I had used for several years. It was a short experiment because I found that I had trouble reading with them. You see, my eyes had alterred enough to require bifocals. A decade later, at fifty, give or take, I noticed my energy levels dropping. As a teacher, I'd sit at my desk in the evenings to mark papers or plan lessons, and it would be a slog.

Now that I am in my early sixties, I can report that another change is occurring and has been for several years now. Sleep. Or lack of it.

While I've often had trouble falling asleep, I usually hadn't had much difficulty in staying asleep. But in the past few years that has shifted. Depending on the night, I might go to bed at midnight, and I might even fall asleep soon after on some nights. But I now seem to be waking up fairly early (for me, in my historical context). I might awaken anywhere from about 5:30 to 7:30 in the morning but most likely about halfway between those two extremes. If I had fallen asleep around midnight, that's usually close to enough sleep for me — but only close and not quite enough. However, if my sleep gets truncated at both ends, say 1:30 to 5:30, it's not good. I require more sleep than that. But what I require and what I get can be very different. It can be quite frustrating.

At an almost identical age, getting enough sleep is also Cuppa's problem, but in her case it isn't lack of sleep. As her body changes, she requires more and more slumber. She seems to need and usually obtain about ten hours, and even then, she might feel completely drained by supper time. If she must remain perky in the evening for some reason, she will drink coffee in copious quantities and still fall blissfully asleep and remain that way for many, many blissful hours.

Oddly enough, she has typically been the more energetic person in this couple with more stamina than me. Yet here we are — with opposite sides of the same vexing problem. Neither of us can get enough sleep.

So, beware younguns; changes await. Unless you are of a very different constitution, I am almost willing to wager that you will notice at least some changes in the very areas that I have mentioned.