Tired

Tonight I am tired. Very tired. My head is aching, my body is sore, and my brain has had enough for the day. I will probably head to bed soon...to my hopefully comfortable 2 standard pillows, 1 tri-pillow and 2 cushions. Plus the mink blanket, polarfleece, and Sebastian my teddy bear. And I will start again tomorrow.

I do love going to bed. Many of my friends like to claim that "sleep is overated" but I disagree. I really don't understand why folks avoid going to bed. I love bed...maybe that's because bed for me has always been a place of safety, contemplation and dreaming. My mum used to read me a bedtime story and my dad would pray with me, every night, almost without fail, before I went to sleep (Dad and I did this right though my teenage years even). Then I would curl up and daydream away until sleep came. I'd imagine I could fly, or that I was saving the world from some great evil, or I'd rework a movie I'd watched, or write an imaginary script in my head. Bed is a great time for the imagination to work...when your mind is half asleep the world of reality can just slip away for awhile. In more recent years some of my best play script ideas have come as I lay in bed at night (generally followed by a quick rush to a pen, paper and light to capture the idea before it fades!).

But I think the reason I like bed most is because it brings closure. Each night, I talk to God about my day. I thank him for the good things, ask about the bits I don't 'get' and generally review and release the day just gone. I think there's a reason we have night and day, weeks and months, seasons and years. They give meaning and definition to our lives. And night time, that's the time for relaxing, socialising, and then sleeping! Imagine if there was no night. If time just continued in one great, big, never-ending line. Unchanging, uninterrupted. No closure, no completion, no breaks or rest. Awful. For me, bedtime signals closure. The day is done. Whether it has been a good one or a horrid one, it is done. I can't go back and do anything more or re-do what I did somehow. And tomorrow is not yet here. Whether I am excited or apprehensive about it, tomorrow is still beyond my scope, so best left until the morning. The night is a time to let go of my busyness and my expectations, and just rest. I believe the ability to genuinely rest is so powerful. This is something I am not really that good at, but I must say that bedtime helps. Boyo will tell you that I take ages (and ages, and ages!) to get ready for bed. The routine of it all just helps me unwind, so by the time I curl up in bed, I am ready. I am ready for peace. I am ready to give my body time to heal and replenish itself. I am ready to give my mind, soul and spirit a break from the harrum-scarrum of my day to day life. I can forget about assignments, 'to do' lists, friends, money and everything else. I can, for a few hours, just be. So I think, personally, that sleep is highly under-rated!

And on that note, I am going to bed! Sweet dreams, my friends.
Amy