Maybe I should blame Pastor Roger for putting a jinx on me. Earlier today, he noticed that I had made the mistake of omitting a date on the church's August calendar. "If you'd go to bed before 3:00 AM, that would cut down on mistakes," he smiled. While at home this afternoon, I dozed off. When I woke up again, the old clock on the bookcase informed me that the gym had been open for over an hour. There was no way I would have gotten there on time to get in any kind of workout.
When I was a teenager, I would see my dad taking naps, and I would be critical. "How can he sleep so much? And during the day on top of that?" I'd think. His primary job with Cook County required that he had to be there extremely early in the morning. His part-time job, driving a Checker Cab, often found him working at odd hours during the week and on the weekends. It never occurred to me that the old man was actually tired, and those siestas would come upon him sometimes whether he wanted them or not. Dad was in his 40s then, and that type of schedule would be hard on anyone, let alone, a middle-aged man.
Of course, I wasn't happy when I figured out I had overslept. Unless I'm sick or some emergency has happened, I seldom miss a night at the gym (the only other exception was when I worked briefly as an usher at the Lyric Opera and missed days here and there). Like Dad, I have been dozing off more often during the day than usual. This past Saturday, I dozed off late in the afternoon and didn't wake up again until 11:30 PM. I was up all night because of that. Most weekday afternoons, I find myself struggling to stay awake. That is a major problem, considering that these days, I need to study for my paralegal classes.
Whether this is due to age or menopause or both, this crap is got to stop. Sometimes I do believe that sleep is overrated, but the only time I need to do that is at night, not at inopportune times during sunlight hours.
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