BEDTIME

As a new father, I have developed a whole new appreciation for Bedtime.

It's that magical time of day when the day is officially over, when all the work is done and you need give no more thought to anything but the potential of tomorrow.

It's a quiet time. It's a relaxing time. It's the time when thoughts become more important than work or other activity. The body slows down in preparation for sleep.

Somehow, surroundings become more sacred; more blessed and familiar and private. Voices drop to quiet whispers in reverent observation of this time, even if no one is actually asleep yet.

Mrs. M and I have always had a very special place in our memories for bedtime.

For Mrs. M, bedtime was preceded by bathtime, one-on-one time with her mother and then storytime, as she crawled under the covers and was read to before she dropped off to sleep.

For me, it was a mystical time when my door was closed and I was alone in the dark, and my imagination became real. Shadows elongated and nothing in my room was quite solid anymore. Magic time. I would make up my own stories with my own characters-- and they would be there. Real, or as real as the night could make them.

Bedtime is perhaps the truest "self" time we have. It is that utterly private, quiet moment where we are the most honest with how we feel and how we express our needs and desires, even if only to ourselves.

Mrs. M and I have some of our deepest, most meaningful conversations when we are both in bed at the same time, talking.

Sometimes our bedtimes don't coincide. I stay up late to work or am too buzzed on caffeine or whatever-- but this only makes those tandem bedtimes that much more meaningful.

And when I do come to bed late, I slip in beside Mrs. M and just stare up at the blackness, slatted by streetlights coming in through the semi-closed venetian blinds, and give thanks for everything in my life. It's almost like prayer, that's how sacred that time is to me.

For those of you that are the "flop into bed sleep immediately" types, I urge you to slow down. Pace yourselves. Take a moment to reflect: your comfy bed, your quiet space. The ultimate in YOU time. It's like your own downy, quilted church. Just you and the silence and the moment that is ultimately yours.

Hush now. Be reverent. It's bedtime.

Posted by Agent M at October 02, 2003 10:27 AM