I have a love/hate relationship with sleep. I am a big fan of a 15 minute cat naps that reenergize me. But I used to be able to function on 6 hours of sleep. As I have gotten older, I am a solid 8-9 hour sleeper and I don’t always even feel that refreshed. I feel like I’m wasting time. I could be doing so much more with that extra 2-3 hours. Even if it is just scrolling through Instagram reels. My mantra in my 20s was that I could sleep when I’m dead. Now, I feel dead when I don’t get good sleep.

I’ve watched my dad decline into being in bed for most of his 24 hours. He was always a sleeper. In bed by 10:30 pm after the news and up by 6:30 am to be out the door at 7:17 am for work. Now he doesn’t leave his room until 9:30/10 am and goes to lie in bed and watch TV at 7 pm. It makes me so sad.

Maybe I equate sleep and/or being horizontal in bed with death and that scares the shit out of me. But that topic is for another day…