Listening

Last night I went to sleep about 3:30 (yes, AM). This is not a huge crisis for me. I love the quiet of the night. No one is around, the house is quiet and there is no stress. Max usually gets up about 6:15 or so and is out of the house before 7 am. He lets the dog out before he leaves and generally makes plenty of noise that wakes me up. It's no big deal - I get up, go to the bathroom and go back to sleep!

I woke up this morning and casually turned over to look at the clock - figuring that he was moving around and that's why I woke up. Ummm ... no. It was 8:55. The first time I stirred. I panicked a bit, thinking that he may have overslept as well, but no - bed was empty, he was gone. I completely slept through his morning! Once I got over the shock, I crawled back in bed and slept for another couple of hours.

He called me at 12:30 (pm). I asked if he felt like he should have taken my pulse when he left this morning. He just laughed and told me that he hadn't been extra quiet and that the dog had made plenty of noise as she jumped out from under the covers (wrapped around my legs) and then crawled back under the covers again. I slept through it all.

I'm one of those people that likes to feel confident when I sleep that I'm going to wake up if there is anything bad happening. I am not that person. I slept through the two worst storms this summer - yup, even hurricane force winds weren't enough to wake me up.

Oh ... then, there was the time when Max and I were 'dating.' We always talked on the telephone late into the night because of our jobs. One night I was totally exhausted and my dear long-winded husband had begun a story that had lots of bunny trails and side stories. I remember the start of the story ... and somehow I got alert just as he was finishing the story - several minutes had passed and I completely missed this story.

I couldn't tell him what I had done, I felt awful! At least I hadn't snored on him. Well, maybe he would have stopped talking if I had. So ... we got married and in May went out to Ohio for a wedding reception with his friends and family. We ended up going out to dinner with the friend that was a part of that story I had completely missed. Dave began telling the story at dinner and I was a smart enough woman to recognize that I needed to pay attention. I got the story that night.

It's just not that easy to listen when you're asleep.