Jan 16, 2017 3 min read

I have been having some trouble sleeping for about six months now. I don’t know why, but I have stopped sleeping through the night as soundly as I have always done.

Nowadays, I wake up at all hours and have difficulty going back to sleep. Sometimes, I have thoughts of some upcoming issue coursing through my mind. Others, I have song lyrics on repeat that I can’t rid myself from. Still others, I will have had a dream that has woken me that I have trouble letting go.

Regardless of cause, it has become common for me to get out of bed at three or four in the morning and head downstairs to make coffee. I read my Bible, I watch infomercials, crochet, do laundry – in an attempt to pass the time productively. Well, except for the infomercial part. Nobody needs to buy the gadgets being hawked in the wee small hours of night.

A few weeks ago, I discovered that I was far more comfortable in bed with my head at the footboard end. I don’t know why that was, but out of serious desperation, I tossed my pillow down there and flopped onto it one night. I fell straight back to sleep and believe that I would have slept until my alarm went off the next morning.

However, sometime later, my husband must have gotten up to go to the bathroom. When he returned to bed, he reached down and petted my head, which I thought was sweet, until he tried to pick me up by my hair. He had mistaken me for one of our cats and was shocked when I responded to his affection with an “ow” instead of a “meow.”

After a short conversation about what the heck I was doing down there, we both got back under the covers. He told me the next morning that I fell right back to sleep, but that I had twitched about a million times and kicked him in the face about half of those times.

Another time that I tried it, I was informed in the morning that I had stolen all of the covers. Unfortunately for him, most of the time I sleep with my feet out from under the blankets, so he didn’t even have the comforter to cushion the blows to his face.

Despite the danger to my hubby, I have utilized this technique a few times in recent weeks. I try to be fair with the amount of covers I cover up with, and I try my absolute best to keep my feet away from his face, though I am not certain how successful I am on either front.

You know why? Because I’m sleeping. Thank the Lord, I’m actually sleeping.

And as much as I love my quiet coffee time, four o’clock in the morning is not really the hour I have in mind when I think about it.

Laura Zoeller can be reached at zoeller5@verizon.net.