Wednesday, December 21, 2011 | By: Brianna

Sleepy Time

Q: What time's your bed time?

A: How do you know I have a bed time, hmm...?

Q: I...um...well...I don't know!

A: Well it's pretty rude of you just to assume that I have a bed time, I mean, I'm over 20 years old.  I don't know very many 20 year olds who have bed times.

Q: Well...I...uh...

A: I usually fall asleep around midnight.  When I'm at school doing my homework, midnight hits and I cease being productive.  By that point, my bed starts calling my name and I just can't help but answer its call by brushing my teeth and leaping towards my pillow.  Which (if you've seen how my room at school is set up) is quite a comical image because I would have to leap and fly a little to get up onto my bed...which is lofted.  I've learned this midnight deadline through my repeated attempts at pulling all-nighters to finish my Senior Seminar paper last semester.  I would convince myself that I could take a nap and that I would wake up again, and then all of a sudden I would be asleep until morning.  Which was bad.

When I'm hanging out with friends (usually at school), midnight is the time at which I turn into a pumpkin.  Because I'm the carriage, not Cinderella.  (I have only just now realized this implication, and I find it hilarious.)  Anyway...I truly tell people, "I'm going to turn into a pumpkin soon, so I should take off."  Part of me wonders if my friends think I'm strange because of this, and the other part of me assures the first part that they already think I'm strange, remarks about pumpkins aren't likely to change that.

When I'm at home, it's a completely different story.  The house gets all dark around 10 PM because my dad's gone off to work and my mom's getting ready for bed herself...so it's weird.  Wandering around in the dark house just seems odd to me.  And it's really weird being one of the only two people awake (I say this because it's obvious my brother's still awake when I can hear him playing video games in the front one) so sometimes I end up passing out around 10 PM and waking up at whatever daylight hour I usually wake up at.  Which is usually 7 AM.  And then there are other times when I don't find the quiet strange.  When I actually want to stay up curled under a blanket with a good book and read under the horrible light until I'm sleepier or until it's at least a little closer to Pumpkin Time.  Or like last night I'll decide it's a good idea to read in bed until my pillow screams that I should sleep and so I rudely pass out while texting my boyfriend.  I'm so nice.

And I usually dream.  The last time I dreamt (Chrome, you know that's a word, so shut up), I dreamed that I was eating banana bread and talking to another RA about why he was quitting.  And that was the most normal dream I've ever had.  I've dreamed about training a person like a dog, I've dreamed about being lost in multiple schools, being chased by Teletubbies, killing kidnappers to save my family members, being in "CATS" again and not knowing the lines, directing a play...it goes on.  And on.  In one series of dreams (this went on over the course of a couple nights) I was dancing.  Like ballroom dancing.  With random people.  Beauty and the Beast style.  It was awesome.

"Sleep is the best meditation."
- Dalai Lama

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