There were years when my husband’s snoring drove me bonkers. I mean, there was nothing he could really do about it and you know, he was asleep but I took his snoring as some sort of personal attack. How could he dare do this to me? Didn’t he want me to sleep well? Didn’t he love me?
No conversations were had in the waking moments of the day. There was no discussion to be made anyways. It was one of many monologues I have within myself in both waking, sleeping and half sleeping moments.
My husband is much more mild mannered than myself. He is kind and generous and thoughtful. Nothing like the frothing at the mouth Neanderthal I am. He knows he snores, there is not much that can be done about it. It is part of life. To bring it up would be cruel.
Life is funny. We know this.
A week into the new year, I left for a month in England. For a month, I slept alone. Mostly on twin beds. One deep in the English countryside with no sound but the creaking of the tall oak outside my window. One cozy brand-new bed but with the sound of fancy cars screeching on the street in Mayfair, London, throughout the night. I slept on a cot with a mattress not much thicker than a duvet in a Benedictine monastery, the only inhabitant of a 40-room building. And on a huge California King on the ground floor of a Georgian Townhome in Bath overlooking the River Avon. And in all those beds, during that month, I missed my husband. Yes, I even missed his snoring.
When I returned home, we snuggled back in our cozy Queen for just a fortnight. (I learned to say that easily in England. It came up in conversation all the time) Two weeks after I returned home, he slipped on the ice outside our home and sustained an injury that made it impossible to walk up the stairs to our bed each night. A dear friend, set up a twin bed in my ground floor office and there my husband has slept for over two months.
Each night I tossed and turned. I missed his presence in our bed. I missed the warmth of his back against mine. I cracked open my door just to hear him snoring downstairs. To know he was there. Alive and breathing.
This man has been working hard to get full mobility back. PT appointments, exercises, ice packs. It is not out of the ordinary for his coworkers to walk by his office to find him laying on his back doing exercises on the floor every 45 minutes. He is dedicated.
Last Saturday, I brushed my teeth, put on my sleep mask (yes, I sleep with one!) and crawled into bed for the night, only to hear the creeeak of our 100-year-old stairs. The door to the bedroom opened and my husband walked in. I tried not to make a big deal. I mean, he was just going to bed but inside, there was no cool. I felt as if I would burst watching him fluff his pillow and slide under the blankets. Poor guy just wanted to get some rest and I lay there, watching him sleep, smiling like some sort of unhinged sorority sister.
And then, it happened. He reached REM and out came a deep, guttural and glorious snore. I nearly wanted to laugh, right there into my pillow I was so happy. My husband was sleeping next to me. I turned over, pulled my sleep mask down over my eyes and slept the best night’s sleep I have had since last year.
Laughing, tearing up--what a joyful piece this is. Evidence of the deepest love!
Everything is perspective, isn’t it?