Reflections on Sleep and sleeping next to someone

Jake is in Canada. This means I have the rare opportunity of sleeping alone. Admittedly, in the past, I have reveled in the opportunity to spread out across my bed and sleep in stillness. Jake and I have always had a full-sized mattress. What's more, both of our children slept with us on a full mattress. (Rarely both of them at the same time, but we were co-sleepers.) Being able to spread out is a luxury.

The last few times, however, I haven't had my magical, euphoric sleep-alone experience. It takes me a while to fall asleep, and I get cold. Sleeping with socks is a must. I'm not super sentimental in the "Oh, Darling, I just can't sleep a wink if you're not here" department, but I have grown rather fond of [just about] falling asleep next to someone. (I stay pretty close to Jake until I'm almost asleep, and then I retreat to my side of the bed until I wake up.) I'll be interested in seeing how the next few nights go.

Random facts:
I prefer to sleep with the blinds/curtains open. That can get a bit tricky depending on where windows are or if there's an ill-placed street/porch light that shines in my window, but living higher up here gives me ample chances...but I only sleep with the curtains open here if Jake isn't home. In Dot, one of our bedroom windows looked out onto our front porch. I usually closed those blinds. But "my window" looked out to the east and was tucked away behind our sunroom, and because I'm a side sleeper - always on my left, though I always [just about] fall asleep on my right side before switching over last minute to sail away to dreamland on my left side - I fell asleep and woke up staring out my window. Our window here also faces east, but our bed is on a different wall so I have to lay on my right side to look out. Perhaps all of Los Angeles gets to be my stand-in for Jake during my falling asleep phase.

I rarely wash my face before bed, and I only have white sheets, so there are always little black mascara smudges on my pillow. I try to be conscious of this when I sleep on other people's pillow cases, but sometimes I fail. If I've ever left a mascara smudge on your pillow cases, or if I ever will, I'm sorry.

Unless I'm sick, I hardly move at night.

I LOVE sleeping with Alice. I've been missing her tremendously lately.

I'm currently reading Polygamy in Primetime, Hillbilly Elegy, and The Mind Of Jesus (again and still).

This has nothing to do with my sleeping/reading practices, but I'm working hard at not thinking about the fact that Jake is on the job market right now. So much anticipation goes into big unknowns, and I know that eventually I'll know where we'll be, but in the meantime I'm reminding myself of all of the really great things that exist here and now. The one thing I know right now is my job. I love it dearly and still feel so lucky I get to show up there everyday. And not just that I get to show up, that my girls get to show up with me.

PS: This is really unrelated to anything in this post, but I am terrified of mountain lions. It's been on my mind. Now you know.

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