I went to bed early that night. It felt good to stretch out and languish alone on the bed.
I sat up for a while and did a crossword, then I read for a while.
Yes, this solo living isn’t a bad way to be, even if I have to experience it the night before we marked our 38th year of being married.
It seemed somewhat poignant to me that my husband had booked in for his sleep study on the eve of our anniversary, but hey, it paved the way for me to celebrate in my own way, basking in the glory of solitude.
I drove him to the study and was booked to collect him at 5am. I had decided that it might be nice afterwards to have a breakfast barbecue at Wellington Point and watch the sun come up or whatever it does at 5am. But the rain put a dampner on the thought and I happily settled into the idea of a morning of idle tranquility.
Life is good.
Yes folks, it has been 38 years and for pretty much most of that time, I have been lolled into my sleep state by the not-so-dulcent tones of a man steadily snoring. To me the sonorific sound is of a man at peace with the world and trumpeting out his satisfaction to a less than appreciative audience of one. Let’s face it, there is only so much satisfaction a person can cope with.
I have developed various techniques to settle the sounds for just five minutes, the idea being that I will quickly fall asleep in the break. It starts with a gentle nudge or a quiet word and finishes with a not-so-gentle shove and a very loud exclamation. His newest response (and this is after a solid 30 minutes of the train leaving and returning to the station) is that he is not asleep. Apparently, he lies there awake, announcing his wakened state with a sound that a 100-voice chain gang could barely rival.
For a man who sleeps a lot, he is often tired. Hence the sleep study which is supposed to get to the bottom of this situation. The results aren’t in yet but I learned something that night.
Give me his snoring any day. Because sleeping alone to a backdrop of quiet kept me awake. I wonder just who needs the sleep study the most.