I am not envious of my son for the world he will have to grow up in. I don't secretly wish to be as young as him and have it all in front of me again. I'm not even jealous of his innocence... but I regret he'll lose it soon enough.
The one thing I do envy him for though is his ability to sleep through the night, undisturbed, in any position he nods off in... without waking up stiff and grumpy, or tossing and turning, trying to find a position that's even remotely comfortable.
A quick google search under "sleep anywhere" will reveal hundreds of pictures that prove children (and cats, it seems) can sleep anywhere... and oh, how I wish that I could too.
I usually start the night on my back, but often wake myself up within an hour or so snoring. So I move onto my side, but need a pillow to raise my upper arm or I'll soon be waking again with pins and needles or a completely dead arm... one of those horrible floppy ones that feels like you've got a huge lump of Playdough hanging from your shoulder. Then I need a smaller cushion, or at least a bit of the duvet, between my knees, which have somehow become too bony to just lie together like they did for the first 30+ years of my life without complaint. And that's before I even start on the hip and lower back pain that wakes me most mornings around 5 and screeches with laughter at the idea that I'll be able to grab another hour without reaching for the Paracetamol.
How do you sleep?
I was going to choose a cool, hip blogger song to accompany this post, honest. I honestly considered all of these fine tracks...
Ballboy - Where Do The Nights Of Sleep Go To When They Do Not Come To Me?
The Silver Seas - Another Bad Night's Sleep
The Numbers - I Can't Sleep At Night
Spearmint - I Can't Sleep
Or even this, the really obvious one...
Faithless - Insomnia
But as I lay awake at 3.15am, choosing music that will bring comfort to my churning mind, I often end up been drawn back to the songs of my youth. Hence this, from the time went TV stations around the world played the National Anthem every night before they went off air... which in itself seems like a lifetime ago...
