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August 12, 2004
sleepguilt
it's funny but i think in the deeper recesses of my mind, i feel guilty about sleeping.
whenever i am awakened by the phone, i try to hide the fact that i've been awakened from sleep. i try to make my voice sound normal. i always think i've succeeded, but i am sure that i never do.
this phone thing goes back to the really bad insomnia days, when i was living out in the woods and doing a 2-5am shift friday nights at the station, working 9-5 during the week.
jonathan would call me on saturday in the late morning or early afternoon. i'd almost always still be dead asleep. he'd be annoyed that i was asleep. so i started trying to hide that fact.
when i was in high school, i'd often stay in bed until afternoon on the weekends, if i could. i'd actually be awake for much of the time, and just laying in bed, listening to my mom talk on the phone to her sisters, listening to the family, and daydreaming.
we have this thing in my family where you don't wake up sleeping people. unless there's like a fire or something. no matter how badly you need that person to get up, no matter how inconvenient their late sleeping is, you don't wake them up. well, except if it's a school morning and mom suspects you're not going to get up on your own.
but... making them feel guilty about it is perfectly acceptable. hello, welcome to my passive-agressive family! my late afternoon "sleeping" habit didn't pass unnoticed. it was commented upon liberally. it was regarded as sort of slovenly behavior, akin to never cleaning up my room or watching tv during daylight hours.
hence, sleepguilt.
btw, i was noticing last night that my mom's house has little piles of crap all over the place. i never noticed it before. it's not as bad as my place, but it was kind of a revelation, since i've always regarded my mom as a very neat and tidy person.
Posted by lisa at August 12, 2004 09:00 AM | TrackBack
Comments
I think the "acting like you weren't asleep when the phone woke you up" thing is universal. At least I know I do it too, whether it's 3am or 3pm when it happens. I've done it as long as I can remember.
Once in high school I talked to my boyfriend for 20 minutes on a Saturday morning while I was asleep, and I remembered not a word of it later, when he called again. He never would tell me what I said during that unconscious phone call.
Posted by: minty on August 12, 2004 09:25 AM
I don't try to hide it if I'm called when I'm asleep. Usually the caller feels extremely guilty about waking me up, so I placate them when they ask "Oh, I'm sorry, did I wake you up?" by telling them, "That's OK, I had to wake up to answer the phone anyway."
Posted by: Steve Meister on August 12, 2004 09:29 AM
I still think it's shocking that you would have a friend who would call you and then be annoyed that you had been asleep, rather than apologetic about waking you up.
My dad used to say "That's okay, I had to get up to answer the phone" to wrong numbers. He also used to offer coffee, tea and brandy to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses who came to the door. He liked messing with people who invaded his home.
Posted by: Sarah on August 12, 2004 09:55 AM
i admit i've been guilty of the whole passive-aggressive "why are you still asleep?" thing. i'm pretty sure i do it to ray.
while i admit that sleep is necessary, and even rejuvenating, i often times just view it as something i HAVE to do... much like an item on a "to do" list. (and i kind of resent most things on my to-do list right now.)
so, for me, sleep can sometimes be just something that gets in the way of all the fun things i want to do. a chore.
i never understood people who could just lie in bed for hours (as you mentioned)... my type-a personality won't allow for it. ;-)
Posted by: christa on August 12, 2004 10:24 AM
i eventually came up with the theory that my laying in bed behavior in high school was an unconscious strategy to get some uninterrupted alone-time. it was the one time when my mom wasn't on my back in some way about something. even if she wasn't saying anything, it was understood that i should be cleaning my room/doing homework/doing housework rather than reading/watching tv/talking on the phone/horsing around with my brother.
Posted by: lisa on August 12, 2004 11:05 AM
Sometimes I think sleep is the ultimate luxury. Time by myself to do nothing. Not talk to anyone, read anything, catch up on anything, or be productive. Just sleep, or maybe think. But mostly sleep.
Mmm, I want a nap.
Posted by: Sarah on August 12, 2004 09:25 PM
ok, so a) your comment won't post right away because i have to approve it first and b) you might get a server error but your comment probably posted anyway and c) previewing doesn't work so i've removed the preview button.