Good Morning/Good Night

Sleep was once my enemy, and now, it's a dear friend.

One of my favorite books as a young child was from the Little Golden Book series. Its title was Good Morning/Good Night, and it contained two stories. After reading the first, you’d turn the book over to read the second. “Good Morning” was about a little boy who hated to wake up in the morning, and “Good Night” was about a girl who hated to go to sleep at night. The illustrations were captivating, and it was one of those books I remember not so much reading but inhabiting when I a kid.

I also identified. I was the little girl in Good Night. The way I saw it, sleep existed to be staved off.

Now I find I cannot wait to climb into bed at what I deem an acceptable time (anything later than 9:15). That restless little girl has become a mystery to me, walking around her dark house in the middle of the night and trying to play with all the toys her parents have put away until morning. Her refusal to abandon daytime consciousness and activities, once so relatable, now feels like a language and body rhythm I was once fluent in, but have forgotten.

The change was gradual. Even as an adult, I loved late nights. All those parties I didn’t want to leave, all those the SNLs I watched up to the final full-cast goodbyes. How did I turn from night owl into hibernating bear? It feels out of my hands. My body is the driver, and I have no choice but to go along.

My bed is a siren, and sleep, its song. I am grateful to be pulled in, though sometimes I wish for the never-say-die that kept me eating pancakes at all-night diners at 3 a.m.

I love my waking hours, but require fewer of them. I welcome, rather than resist, sleep. It feels not like the darkness I fought as a child, but a quiet refuge, a book I can now condense into a single story, with a single character: a woman who loved to sleep, and loved to wake up in the morning.