Hitting Reset pt. 4 – Make the Bed

Somewhere around 4:00 A.M.
I like going to sleep in a bed that is made. Maybe I’m anal or picky or particular. I just like it. It’s how sleep was meant to be.

Tonight is one of those rare occasions when I have the bed to myself. I don’t like these occasions but they happen from time to time. It’s 4:00 A.M. and about an hour ago I had to make the bed.

2:00 – ish
After about ten minutes of Milan’s whimpers, I go in to check on her. My hand on her head consoles her and I stumble back into bed looking for that sweet spot. It’s not quite the same but it will have to do. Too tired to fumble around. Too adjusted to turn on the lights.

Roughly 20 Minutes after 2:00 – ish
Milan is crying again. Wait it out . . . not stopping. Round two. I think to myself as I debate how long I’ll let her go, she was laying ON TOP of her bunched up blanket last time I went in. Time for a covert operation. Daddy takes the corners of her covers and with one fluid motion: unwad, spread, and lay. (By the way, “unwad” is not a word, but for some reason it really fits to me here.) Problem solved.

My sheets and blankets are now a mutated mass and the so-called sweet spot is a memory, but I make due.

15 minutes. I need to pee.

Up. Out. Back in. All in the dark. By now, I’m half-hugging, half-wrestling my covers. Trying to kick them into submission just makes matters worse. This is just NOT how the sleeping experience was meant to be. It’s annoying.

It takes all but thirty seconds to a do a mini-make over and set things in order and yet I lay here another 20 minutes getting all tangled up.

Maybe I’m not good with analogies but it just seems like sometimes the longer I lay in my situation the more bunched up it gets. My stubbornness would rather ignore or all out deny the mess I’m in; convince myself that I’m OK and embrace mediocre comfort. All because I don’t want to surrender to the sheets and get up for thirty seconds to make the bed.

Let’s see. I do this when I argue my stupid point – kicking it and sometimes others into submission. (Or so I think.) When I refuse to hear others out. When I’ve had or am in a funk – in my attitude, my energy, my interactions. I do this when I delay forgiveness. When I avoid the issue. When I put off the bills or exercise or cleaning the garage or having that conversation or so on and so forth.

Hitting reset means sometimes you just have to flat out start over. Cut the line – rewire the rod. Sheets win – I surrender.

5:03 A.M.
Time to straighten up my covers, start over, and hit reset on some sleep!