She helps me sleep—even when she’s asleep.
I’m a high maintenance sleeper. Not in the way where I’m sensitive to sound or need eye covers and a white noise machine. But sleep, a simple human necessity, is something hard to come by. It’s years of disruptive sleep, more-so then insomnia (that was during the design school days).
If Kate falls asleep before me, I, for whatever reason, won’t fall asleep until hours later. I’m just up—restless—probably counting the wood grain on the beams of our ceiling. So she reads or forces me to hit the sack so she can help me fall asleep before she does. I’m out by 12 or 12:30.
Every night, I wake up 2–4 times between when I fell asleep and when I need to wake up. Guaranteed. Whether it’s a weeknight or a drunken stupor of a weekend or if I fall asleep at 2, I’ll still wake up around 3. It’s dumb. But it has been going on for years.
I’ve tried different things. Drink herbal tea. Eat ice cream. Have a nightcap. Don’t have a nightcap… the list goes on. And still, I keep waking up in the early hours of the day and I’ll reposition myself, toss… turn… and Kate notices. She then rubs her hands through my hair to help calm me to sleep. And it works! Later in the morning, I thank her, and she doesn’t recall doing it.
So… reason 2,023,421 Kate is Awesome.