June 27, 2005

• Falling Awake

  
  

  Reading texts of philosophy and spiritual literature, it's quickly apparent that sleep has a bad reputation.  No one wants to be caught sleeping his life away and the supreme compliment is to be "awake" and "enlightened" (Buddha described himself as a dude who woke up). 

  
  

  Well, I'm starting to think that all those enlightened people have it wrong.  Sleep is a good thing.  After years and years of not very much sleep, I've been ... well ... sleeping.  A lot.  In fact, my life this summer has consistented largely of working, eating, sleeping and making plans to start the next round of the same all over again.  I'd have looked down on the sleeping part of this elemental regimen as recently as a few months ago.  Why sleep when you can be AWAKE.  Even in the middle of the night.  I mean, how creative is that!  Other people are sleeping but I'm AWAKE reading, writing, and living ... consciously. 

  
  

  Only there's a curious thing that happens when I sleep.  I dream.  I heal.  I have to live my life at a little slower pace.  And I'm figuring out that's not all bad. 

  
  

  I've had more or less an adversarial relationship with sleep for a long time.  I suffered from a sleep disorder for years.  When I was screened at the Sleep Lab - the diagnostician told me that my heart was doing things when I thought I was sleeping that looked like I was on the verge of either a heart attack or a stroke.  It was terrifying.  I was afraid to fall asleep. 

  
  

  But I got treatment, made some lifestyle changes, and for a couple years now I've been sleeping normally.  Well, at least I wasn't on the verge of a stroke every night.  But I was sleeping short hours.  A long night of sleep for me was about 6 hours - but I averaged more like 4-5.  I'd fall asleep 11ish, but be awake by 4.  Friends on the west coast called me at night, friends on the east caught me in the morning.  It was all good. 

  
  

  These days I'm doing things a little differently.  I'll admit that I was forced into my new routine by being dog tired after working all day.  But even though I had to be dragged kicking and screaming to my new routine - I'm learning to like it.  I go to sleep earlier - like 8-9.  And I'm sleeping later - like until 7 am.  Can you imagine that change?  I've lost more than 5 hours of AWAKE time every day. 

  
  

  I'm not missing it. 

  
  

  Oh there are things I could be doing more of or accomplishing faster, but it's not like they aren't getting done at all (except for vacuuming, for some reason this summer I've been anti-vacuuming - go figure)  But I'm dreaming more, I'm walking a little slower through my day, and I'm feeling a lot better. 

  
  

  And I'm noticing that it's about time for me to hit that hay again.  I'm ready.

  
  

  ********************

  
  

  Wanna give me a bit of advice?  Here's what I'm turning over in my head.  One of the assistant managers at work is a great guy.  Has a very paternal attitude toward all the employees.  He's the first guy to notice when someone is tired and suggest they take five in the back.  He's the one who feeds me several times a week.  In fact he sent home dinner with me today and fussed because all I brought was soup and salad.  It's all I wanted but he didn't think that it was enough.  He actually said that I don't eat enough for how hard I work.  Which is also significant because he's got very high standards and makes it clear that it takes a LOT to impress him. 

  
  

  SO anyway, today, one of the hostesses was in need of a ride home.  He lives closer to her than I do, and I heard him offer to drop her off.  Warning bells went off in my head like you just would not believe.  SO I told her that I really really really needed her help and that I would love to drop her at home if she wouldn't mind assisting me with this project.  And in truth, I did need the assistance because the hostess in particular is quite a bit taller than me and I was trying to clean this mirror that I couldn't reach the top of even from the ladder... 

  
  

  I've been trying to decide whether to have this conversation with the manager guy tomorrow.  See, over the past 20 years, I've noticed that nice guys make themselves very vulnerable because it never occurs to them that anyone would take their offers of kindness as anything but kindness.  I have no suspicion at all in my mind that he was offering anything but a ride home to that girl.  But that's the kind of situation where someone who had a grudge could make an accusation and by the time all the smoke has cleared, a guy's life is messed up. 

  
  

  Am I being paranoid?  See what I want to do is take him aside and say, Look I KNOW you're a nice guy and all you were offering was a ride home.  But don't DO that.  Don't be vulnerable to someone that way.  You're young, you don't know how quickly that snake can turn around and bite you. 

  
  

  What do you think?  Do I need to settle down?  Or have the conversation that may save him some grief down the road?

  
  

   

  
  

  *** Point of clarification - the hostess in this case is about 17 years old and the manager in question is in his early 30's.  So my saying to him "you're young" is a relative measure of his age to mine.

  
  

  Part of my paranoia comes from having witnessed more than one situation where a man was innocently alone with a young woman and wound up later facing accusations of innappropriate behavior.  So I came away from that with an understanding of how vulnerable a person is when it comes down to "he said/she said" and the difficulty of anyone knowing what happens or doesn't when two people are alone.  I don't want to see anyone burned. 

  
  

  And another part of my paranoia is that while I have an appreciation for the fact that this manager is tough but fair and I've noticed the ways that he shows kindness, many of the younger staff are intimidated by him and don't see past the fact that he's tough.  They assume that he doesn't like them and they take his attempts to promote standards and good service to mean that he's criticizing them or being harsh.  I've heard more than one person complain after he sent them to take a five minute break (which they clearly needed) that "he doesn't think I can do my job, he doesn't think I'm good enough to handle it."

  
  

  So my concern is that this young girl would not feel comfortable being alone with him, and would not feel assertive enough to say "no" to his offer.  That's the situation that seems so ripe for trouble. 

  
  

   

  • 10:59 pm
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