Inalienable Right

Among the inalienable rights Thomas Jefferson enumerated in his self-evident truths I contend that a good night’s sleep should have been at the top of the list. Maybe that is included in the pursuit of happiness or maybe T.J. fell asleep while writing the Declaration of Independence. I doubt his slaves ever slept very well.

Thomas, my good man, how am I to attain life and liberty without a good night’s sleep, I ask you. And how else to dream the American dream without quality shut-eye? After all we spent a third of our lives with our head on a pillow. That adds up to about thirty years for me. 

Here I am at midnight thinking about virulent mutant strains but enough about Trump. I know there are some people who fall asleep as soon as they go horizontal. This is a talent for which I would gladly trade my skill-set except I have nothing much to barter. I can't surf, ski, sky dive or slam dunk and I've never been submerged into a shark tank. If I hadn't slept so many years maybe I could have mastered one or two. The list of non-achievements is enough to keep me up another hour.

The older I get the harder it is. At least I have no memory of fitful sleep as an infant unless an errant diaper pin was sticking into me. And then there was the dreaded colic. No, not colic, please. (Eight decades later that morphed into GERD). 

I logged in my eight hours all throughout high school. In college I had a few nights when I forced myself to stay up cramming for some exam which tested our rote learning. Over the next sixty years I drifted off with all my synapses and neurotransmitters seemingly in sync. And then they weren’t.  

As if in compensation for diminished cognition my brain asserts itself around midnight. I start thinking great thoughts. I know they are great because I can’t remember any insights the next morning. Big ideas call for big erasures. Great thoughts get mixed up with the mundane and shards all of which make for sludge; the kind of sludge that sticks in my craw, wherever that may be.

I lay there reviewing my life, parts of which should be boring enough to put me to sleep. At least they would put anyone else to sleep. Eventually, just as I’m about to nod off I think I may have to pee. Better get up. No, don’t miss the chance to drift away. No, get up you fool! So, I do and now must start all over again. I could try my old mantra: Beaujolais. Beaujolais. Yes, I feel it working. It is an intoxicating potion. If I wake up drunk I’ll know it worked.

However, what works on Monday no longer works by Wednesday. My sleep apparatus is like the coronavirus. It creates variants or more accurately, tolerance. Yesterday’s soporific brew is tomorrow's ho-hum. The subject has me flummoxed. I'm thinking about those rights endowed by my creator. My lids are getting heavy. Don’t speak. I’m off.