Charmed
Life
Gretheline
Genciana Ramos-Bolandrina
Sleep
“Lucy: Peter once asked
me when I fell in love with Jack. And I told him, "It was while you were
sleeping."
The quote was from the 1995 movie “While
You Were Sleeping”, a story about love at second sight starring Sandra
Bullock, one of my favorites. It is a lovely story about a lonely lady admiring
a high-class businessman from afar (in her toll booth on the subway.) One
day two muggers attack him and she courageously saves his life. He was in
a comatose state after the attack. A misunderstanding makes it appear that
she is his fiancée and confusion ensues. Now his family all believe
that she really is his fiancée. His brother though suspicious slowly
believes her as well. But now the brother starts to fall in love with her
and vice versa. Such is life, as I know it, a great romantic comedy. Feelings
are pure. But life is not perfect. Life is not even fair. The movie is very
likeable. Even set in the holidays.
For a healthy adult, what can you guess to
be enough restful sleep? At least eight hours, a little less? How about just
a little more? What of adults who work the night shift? Then there’s
insomnia, a common sleep problem. It does not discriminate; it affects people
of nearly every demographic. The basic sleep cycle, a progression through
orderly succession of sleep states and stages is by far the biggest need
of most people I know. The first cycle begins by going from wakefulness to
non-REM sleep. The first REM period follows the first period of non-REM sleep,
and the two sleep states continue to alternate throughout the night with
an average period of about 90 minutes. A night of normal human sleep usually
consists of 4-6 non-REM/REM sleep cycles. Aha! You think this explains new
parents’ zombie-like disposition, the REM/non-REM cycle?
I’m completely undecided if I should
write on what happens to one when one sleeps versus what happens to the world
while one sleeps. As with the movie above and “Sleepless in Seattle”
another favorite of mine (with Meg Ryan), so much goes on in life. To my
current favorite TV show “Medium,” sleep or the lack thereof is
a mystery. I vividly remember in 1999 when I worked the 11-7 shift, waking
up around 10 PM to get ready for work, my husband Joe broke the news of JFK
Jr.’s death. He prefaced with, “just to let you know, while you
were sleeping, JFK Jr.’s plane crashed. I don’t want you to get
out into the world not knowing what happened.” He filled me in with
the details. I didn’t think I missed much by working nights. I wrote
a piece on being a “Night Nurse” that was published by Nursing
Spectrum Magazine in New England (which was then carried over to the tri-states).
I sort of sour-grape-sugar-coated working the graveyard shift and looked
for silver linings in the whole situation. I sort of adjusted well but I
guess my family completely didn’t. It wasn’t until 2002 when tragedy
struck. Unfavorable things happened while I was sleeping and it was time
for me to re-join the world of the living. Daytime and a day job called my
name. And I now realized not just how much sleep I lost but how much sleep
I need not make up for. In the here and now, with Lilly (4) and Max (2),
I try to comply with a bedtime routine that I had with our two older kids,
Jesi and Gino, when they were of the same age. Bedtime is at 8:30 PM, allowances
happen on the weekends though. Excuses are made for family movie time. After
getting ready for bed, with pre-requisite brush your teeth, change to jammies,
pick two books routine. Déjà vu, we read, say our prayers and
attempt to slumber. On good nights, both toddlers fall asleep quick as a
bunny, Joe then moves them from our bed to their own. On not-so-good nights,
I get to read “Green eggs and ham” or “Baby Beluga” for
what seems like a gazillion time. Still, I wouldn’t exchange it for
anything in the world. It is reassuring to know that while I was sleeping,
the whole Bolandrina household did too. And practically the whole world slept
as well.
And while I was sleeping, I am recharging
for what lay ahead in my charmed life, with the people I love and with what
I love to do. I don’t ever want to be caught off guard, unaware of what
happened when and be given a sly response of, “it was while you were
sleeping!”
Feel free to e-mail me reactions, comments
and or suggestions for ideas to ponder. Contact me at
Gretheline@aol.com or through Carousel
Productions. |
