I’m An Insomniac. And I’m Sleeping Like a Baby During the Pandemic
“You know, don’t you, that Cleo chewed on your hair while you were sleeping last night.” Kent, my beloved, is speaking to me from across the kitchen counter about the irascible pandemic Bernedoodle puppy we adopted together six months ago. And no, I didn’t know that. “Yeah,” he continues. “I took her out to pee because she was barking frantically at 2 a.m. and when we got back to the bedroom, she jumped up on the bed and went straight for you.” I never heard the barks. I never felt the chews. I am a 56-year-old menopausal woman and I was sleeping as if I were dead. It wasn’t always this way. For as long as I can remember, I have been an incurable insomniac. As an anxious 23 year old who felt inadequate to the task of grownup life, in lieu of sleep, I’d stand by the stove late at night cooking the only thing I knew how to make — — tapioca pudding — and eating it warm right out of the pot, …