Not "In Love" but in Love

Virginia Woolf once said that “one cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” She had trouble sleeping though. I wonder if the doyenne of the Bloomsbury group might not have walked into a pond with rocks in her pockets if she’d been able to get some good sleep, as well as a good dinner now and then.

Let me present you with two scenarios. Let’s take the first wherein I’m nine months pregnant and it’s Valentine’s day. My dearest love, my husband and father of my child has been ambivalent about taking me out to a restaurant because I’ve slept fitfully for two months and for the last two days, barely at all. I’ve changed clothes for the evening but my bosom is falling out of my black bias cut top because I’ve had to pull it down so far to cover the ever-expanding belly that is now covered with a pair of black slacks that I must have stolen from Humpty Dumpty. I look like Mother Goose in funeral garb. My pudgy little feet are tightly zipped into boots that took 15 minutes and sounds usually reserved for tennis matches or porno films to get zipped. The hair that’s been braided and pulled back all day has been released and resembles a mop that was used to clean up an oil spill. And this, he gets coerced to take to dinner, with friends. But he’s a trooper. Clean shaven, buttoned into a black silk shirt with dragons on it and pony-tailed, he bounces into the kitchen yelling “Samauri Dan!” By the time the food comes, I’ve been alternately falling asleep on his shoulder and gnawing on it.

Then I didn’t sleep all night. I tried not to be angry, though I was frustrated. I spit cat hair out of my waterglass, threatened to wash everything in our bedroom and bathe a 19-year-old cat for whom it might well be a death sentence. But I got myself under control. I grumpily just chalked it up as par for the course of the last week of pregnancy and left for campus fueled by a combination of frustration, a big, fat to-do list, and a remembrance of how I used to do this in the old days. I was also carrying around a line from Fight Club “When you have insomnia, you’re never really awake or really asleep – nothing seems real” and decided to just deal with the weirdness of the day as it came.

And it was weird. I worked, I fell asleep over my coffee, I visited the mall to pick up new eyeglasses for Dan and stopped by the Goodwill to drop off one last load.

I returned home to find that the love of my life has vacuumed the house, changed the filters in the HVAC, run the fans all day, changed and washed the bed-linen and duvet cover, brushed the cat, wiped down the dusty surfaces upstairs and generally taken my distress so seriously that he has spent his lunch hour and all of his breaks clearing the bedroom of anything that might be interfering with my breathing and keeping me from sleeping. While this was at the time hidden in my frustration at needing to replace my too-short shirt with a longer one (I eventually borrowed one of his) to go see some friends down the block, I turned in at one am or so for a “nap” expecting to be up soon and pacing as usual.

But no, I slept. I slept til I awoke at 5:30. I went down with my book for a yogurt, fell asleep on the couch and woke up at 7:30. 7:30. I think I’m in love.

In Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, there is a character none-too-gently referred to as “Nateley’s Whore,” who is pursued recklessly by man after man, through party after party, who seems interested in neither men, food, parties, booze or any of the other sensual distractions of her social set or their dates. One night, she falls asleep and one of the guys gently tucks her into bed. She awakes in love with him, a phenomenon he didn’t understand until he realized how bone-tired she’d been and that all she’d really wanted during all these crazy parties, during the crazy war where crazy characters like Yossarian pursued crazy ladies who drank too much, was a good night’s sleep.

Not that all of y’all care, but I love this man. Not the “I showed up at his apartment at ten wearing black underwear and nothing else” kind of love from the early days, or the “I think we actually might be able to work out an equitable relationship where neither of us has to trade our self-hood for affection” kind of love. No, this is the same kind of love I felt sitting exhausted next to a stunning plate of (all cooked) Sushi on Wednesday night because although he was tired, it was what I wanted to do for Valentine’s day and we might not be able to do it without a sitter for another 15 years. It’s the kind of love you feel when you wake up after a full night’s sleep for the first time in a week to find that the bad boy you married has turned into one hell of a sweetheart of a husband. If I weren’t going to already, I’d have this man’s baby.

A lot of people discount that when they choose a boyfriend or girlfriend, that they may be choosing a future life’s partner. The end results can affect a person physically, emotionally, financially and intellectually for their entire life. Marry someone and have their baby and you are joined to them forever. If you don’t believe me, talk to someone going through a divorce with a custody battle over a child. Choosing wisely, Grasshopper, is key.

We might talk about gender roles, marriage and childrearing till we’re blue in the face, (and believe me I will) including why there’s something about a bad boy that makes a girl’s heart beat fast. Full grown and self-actualized women are supposed to be above this, though I’m still susceptible to the rascal in both of us. After a good dinner and a good night’s sleep (even if they are on separate nights) I’m going to spend the day thinking – and that might be the best Valentine’s day gift of all.