AWAKE IN WINTER
In a year synonymous with heightened awareness for just about everything, I’ve begun to notice and pick apart the differences between sleepless summer nights and waking in winter darkness.
In the summer months, beleaguered by bizarre dream-filled sleep or the cursed 3:00am wake up that’s the cue to flounder in a pool of anxiety, I learnt to adopt a new strategy. I would remember that in an hour or so, the birds would start singing and the night would be over. Once a hint of morning glow began to seep in at the top of the window, reassured that another day was about to begin, I would fall into an exhausted sleep to be rudely awoken by the alarm all too soon.
Ironic that I (aka Moley, as nicknamed by P), would actively watch for the appearance of light in a room I’d made every effort to keep as dark as humanly possible. He frequently mocks my short-sighted mammal tendencies - seeking a state of permanent darkness under the covers and making it my life’s work to ensure the room is blacked out by the most efficient kinds of blind and curtain known to man. When we first moved in together he tried to persuade me about the benefits of going to sleep with the curtains wide open. I can think of nothing worse than to let light in before I’m ready to welcome it.
Now, plunged into winter, I find it a lot harder to approximate the time upon stirring. The inky veil of darkness, chilly temperatures outside the duvet and the kind of heavy sleep that only happens post December 1st seem to add to my body clock confusion. Is sleepless winter night jet lag a thing?
The winter waking process appears to happen in an altogether slower time frame and is akin to the sensation of being hauled back up from the far off fathoms I drifted to hours earlier. The rise to the surface feels choppy, accompanied by fitful dreams and a distant awareness that I might be waking but can’t be sure. Back and forth I kick before eventually breaking the surface of awareness, spluttering, splashing, sometimes gasping for air.
Once I’m fully back in the land of the living, the need to know the time becomes a matter of the utmost importance. Then I remember I’m loath to press the alarm clock display button as to do so emits a vivid green set of digital numbers that imprint themselves on the back of my eyes.
Along with the musings over the ungodly hour comes the deliberation over whether I should get up to use the bathroom. Not only is early hours waking the preserve of the midlife woman but so it seems is the need to go to the loo ten times a night. Insomnia and full bladder has become my menopausal chicken and egg. [Insert egg/menopause related pun here if you wish].
Common sense eventually prevails and a bathroom visit seems to be the only sensible option if I’m to have a remote chance of more sleep. The return pad back to bed usually provokes a groan, a stretch and the shaking of a pair of large canine ears downstairs in the hallway. I pray that we’re not anywhere near 5:30 am at this point or a series of increasingly desperate whines will begin in a bid to secure an early breakfast and visit to the garden for a wee. Maybe Biscuit and I are experiencing the menopause together.
Having felt my way back around to my side of the bed - it’s a narrow gap and I live in fear of knocking a picture off the wall as I creep - I delight in the warmth of the heavy winter duvet and settle in to lying in wait for the first clicks of the central heating as it whirs into life. These have become my seasonal security blanket - there’s something reassuring about hearing the 5:55 a.m. sounds of heat being slowly and noisily distributed around the house. They’re my wintery replacement for the streaks of summer sun that I would wait for and then watch in awe as they rubbed out the dark skies, streak by streak.
I lay there reminiscing over how I would get up in the summer and go for a swim and remember that, no matter how far off that seems now, I’ll be back to that routine again before I know it.
But for now I’ll take the warmth of the house, the anticipation of that first cup of tea in a quiet kitchen and the sleepy feeling that’s finally beginning to return...
