Day 95: Sleeping Together

Seriously, I will punch you if you pull the covers off me.  Just so you know.  My voice is muffled from under the down comforter where I am cozily tucked and getting drowsy.  And of course I would never sock him one.  But sometimes when I'm drifting off to sleep, I'll reach the place where everything is warm.  The drifting place, moments from sleep.  My husband will turn to set the alarm clock and he'll take the entire down comforter with him as he turns leaving me cold and exposed and in a panic.  It's a big deal.  It's an ice-water in the face kind of big deal.  So every night I threaten physical harm.  And every night I stay warm.

Bedtime wasn't always this way.  For the first few months, we tried to sleep romantically.  My head on his chest.  Spooning.  Whatever.  But you can's actually sleep with your head propped at a sixty degree angle and your shoulder wedged into his rib cage.  It's romantic, but in the morning everyone is stiff and grumpy.  Eventually we gave it up and deferred to our own sides, moving to opposite corners of the bed. Like boxers in the ring, we protected our space.  More room.  Better sleep.  But I've just noticed now that we've changed. 

I woke up last night with his elbow in my ear.  I was dreaming that a hammer kept dropping on my head and I opened my eyes to this giant elbow against my skull.  And it wasn't until I was nearly asleep, last week, that I realized his arm (not my own) was flung across my eyes, as if to block the sun.  Instead of pushing him away, I tucked a little closer.  I did a sort of half-shrug in my half-foggy mind and settled to find sleep anyway.

You can tell alot about a couple by how they sleep.  From us, I can see that we started in a place determined by what we thought everyone did.  We assumed that happy married couples slept in snuggly positions.  And if we could only sleep this way, then we would stay happy.  We would always be in love.  When we realized this was ridiculous, we went the other way, defending our own space and clinging to our pillows instead of each other.  But now we've found a sort of middle ground.  A floppy elbow-in-your-head kind of sleeping place that says we're comfortable with each other.  It says that we don't need to pretend to be romantic, but we still want to touch.  I don't know where we'll be or how we'll sleep in another three years.  But I know it will be together.  And I know that I'll threaten to punch him if the covers come off.  Just so you know.