Let Them Sleep

For as often as sleep often eludes me, it is one of my very favorite things. Sleep can recharge you, heal you, and is really just pretty overall amazing. In my world, one of the best parts about vacation is sleep. There’s no stress from work to keep you up, nothing pressing that you absolutely have to take care of the next morning, a person can get some good quality sleep in while on vacation. So imagine my surprise, and a bit of disgust, when during my recent vacation I did not get to sleep in even once.

The trip started as I expected, with me getting up really early to catch my flight and then not sleeping on the plane. There seems to be a mental block between me and sleep on a plane. I’m not sure what it is, it just has never happened for me. Some women can’t play sports, I can’t sleep on a plane. I was staying with a favorite relative the first two nights of my trip so I was expecting to get some quality sleep in, despite the fact that there would be a small child in the house (and we all know they tend to be early risers).

To be fair, my cousin did warn me about what was to come in the morning, but I figured I’d be very tired and sleep right through the commotion. I was wrong. And by commotion, I mean devil birds that start chirping at 4am. Seriously. At the time, I had some much less kind words to describe their morning songs than chirping, but we’ll stick with that for the time being. Once I finally got used to the devil birds (this is not their actual name, just one I came up with for them out of the goodness of my sleep deprived heart), I got yet another treat. Garbage trucks. And these weren’t your typical garbage trucks that came and went quickly. Oh no, the garbage trucks seemed to be there for at least 45 minutes. So day one of my vacation, I was out of bed by 630. AM.

Day two of the vacation also gave me the special treat of waking up to the devil birds, but eventually I was able to tune them out and go back to sleep. Fortified with a couple very large cups of coffee, I was up and ready to go bright and early.

The second part of my vacation had me meeting up with a friend and staying at a hotel in Waikiki. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping in and waking without the assistance of the devil birds. My friend has never been a morning person so I figured the next few days would be a perfect mix of sleeping in and sitting on the beach.

The first rude awakening I got was upon checking into the motel. They informed us that there was a continental breakfast (yay!) from 630-830am (boo). People are on vacation in Hawaii and you expect them to be up and able to get breakfast by 830 in the morning? I decided that if I was up, great, and if not there was a Starbucks on every other corner so I was clearly not going to starve or be deprived of my caffeine habit.

The second rude awakening I got was the next morning. Where I was woken up by my friend getting in the shower. At 7am. I have never known this friend to a) be awake before me or b) be functioning enough at 7am to actually be getting in the shower. I lay there in bed thinking “SERIOUSLY?!” Which I’ll admit was quickly followed up with a “WTF?” As it would turn out, this annoying little habit continued over the next few days. To this day I'm still trying to figure out how my friend turned into a morning person for vacation.

Eventually it was time to head back home, where once again I did not sleep on the plane, got into town late, and had to be up and ready for work the next morning. All week I kept imagining how great it was going to be to sleep in on Saturday morning. And then I realized that I had made a hair appointment for the first thing on Saturday morning. Sigh.

After a sleep deprived vacation and a terribly busy and exhausting week at work, sleeping in this morning never felt so good. I woke naturally at about 815 and thought to myself, if I was still on vacation, I totally could have still made it to breakfast. And then I did what any sane and exhausted person does . . . I rolled over and went back to sleep.