I’ve been wearing a Fitbit for six months now. It was a gift for Mother’s Day. Or maybe my birthday? No, definitely Mother’s Day.
Like most techie gifts, I *think* I want it but then find out that I can’t quite figure it out. The instructions aren’t clear enough for someone like me, who didn’t acquire a cell phone — and then it was a flip phone — until I was almost 30. I haven’t quite figured out how to have it log my exercise, I don’t know how to synch it with my phone and I most definitely haven’t mastered charging it. Often I think it’s properly attached to the charger, only to discover it’s deader than dead.
But what I truly love and appreciate about the little purple device that never leaves my wrist unless I shower is how it gives me daily affirmation and validation that I don’t get anywhere enough sleep.
Not by a long shot.
I discovered many years ago that my ideal sleep number is 9 hours, a number that hasn’t been reached since BK, before kids. And then when they turned into sloths around 12-13 years old, we’d acquired an early bird dog that refuses to sleep in.
Just look at those stats! I would like to know in what weirdo programmer’s world, five hours of sleep a night counts as “fair.” No! It’s the exact opposite! It’s completely unfair! In fact, it’s downright mean and possibly life-threatening. There’s a reason that prison guards blast Ed Sheeran at Gitmo throughout the night so detainees can’t sleep — THEY WANT TO BREAK THEM.
I think a score of under 8.5 hours should trigger a warning that flashes “Get to an all-inclusive spa! Now! In the Bahamas! You need REST!”
Of course, normally I log a more respectable 6-ish hours, but when No. 3 was asked to do a twice-a-day basketball camp with the first practice running 5 a.m.-7:30 a.m. THE WEEK BEFORE HE TURNS 16, it fell on me to ferry him.
Weirdly, it wasn’t so hard to roll out of that toasty bed at 4:21 a.m., which I decided was the latest I could push a wake-up. Or, more accurately, the latest I felt I could smack awake No. 3 after he slept through his 4:15 a.m. alarm and still have us get out the door and arrive on time at the gym conveniently located 8.2 miles away.
We did it five days straight and already by Day 2, the effects of the too-early morning were evident. I was working at the computer and nodding off. When I looked up at the screen, I’d typed “murmur murmur” onto Google search.
I better snap out of it, I thought and reached for my mug of tea. I took a sip of air and then another and another.
“What’s wrong with this cup?” I said. It didn’t register that it was empty.
By Thursday, I thought I was hallucinating.
My back was so itchy that I was convinced I must have bug bites or a very localized case of poison ivy.
“Holy cow! What’s THAT?!” I spotted a dark blotch on my shoulder in the mirror.
Oh yeeeeeeah. It was the tattoo I’d gotten A YEAR AGO.
So, you can see why when I slept straight through to 5:20 a.m. on a Saturday — until I could hear the tell-tale signs of a dog chewing and destroying something — I thought it was something of a miracle.
Man, I need to get to the Bahamas.
**UPDATE: So, I was so thrilled to not have to wake up at oh-dark-thirty on the weekend only to have my alarm go off at 4:21 a.m. Monday. Of course. **
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