110.366 - 2016 project and sleep

every day in 2016, write a sentence or a paragraph or a poem that appreciates

sleep

once upon a time sleep was a non-issue.  wait.  is that true?  or is it a myth?  crap.  I don't remember, but I think true.  I think that for much of my life when I should have been a grownup, I slept when I needed to and didn't sleep when I didn't need to.  one exception occurred when I was shipped to England for five days.  I arrived on the morning the conference started, and managed to drive on the English side of the road from Heathrow to England's version of NASA Johnson center.  (no, I don't remember their equivalent to NASA nor their equivalent to Johnson Space Center.)  I barely stayed awake for the meeting that afternoon or for the social that evening, then drove groggily but on the English side of the road to the bed'n'breakfast where I stayed.  the people at the B'n'B kindly hurried me to bed and I slept a couple of hours and woke and could not get back to sleep.  for four days, life was like that.  I fell asleep in every meeting, mumbled my way through every social, and couldn't sleep through the dark time of the day.  (this is called jetlag, if you don't know it.  if you don't know it, I urge you to stay unacquainted.)  then I flew back from Heathrow, and spent a similar week here readjusting to real time.  sheesh!  but as I say, in my own mythology, for most of my "grownup" life, I slept when I needed to, usually during the dark hours, and didn't sleep while I needed to be awake.  then I retired, and roughly a couple of years later began life with CHF (congestive heart failure), spent eleven days in the hospital, and came home with my sleep cycle completely out of whack with being a grownup.  usually when I'm in a social event like a poetry reading or a literary presentation, I stay awake.  so far I always stay awake while I drive.  but at home, I sleep two hours now and two hours then and two hours some other time.  it's a little more regular than that, but not a lot.  most days I wake sometime after two in the dark and before five in the dark, ready to start my day.  most days, sometime after eight in the morning and before ten in the morning, the world tucks itself away behind my closed eyelids for a couple of hours, then does so again after fourteen o'clock.  you can see, sleep leaves me plenty of day to get my work done, just oddly apportioned if I were a grownup.  here's to sleep!  manage it while you can.  I think you have an appointment with a time when sleep manages you.