30 Days of Joy: Sleeping In

Note: This article is the next step in my challenge to find joy in something — anything — every day for 30 days. Today’s entry is part 9.

This morning, for the first morning in many mornings, I had nothing to do upon waking up.

No workout. No tee time. No will-I-or-won’t-I wrestling match with a cold shower.

Nothing.

Which meant I was free to indulge in my second-favorite pastime:

Sleeping in.

The beauty of sleeping in, first and foremost, is granting your body the additional rest it craves.

But for me, a hidden perk is the freedom it grants my brain.

Despite having no children, I wake up more often in the night than a new mother. And every time I do, I instinctively check my bedside clock to calculate how many hours I have until I have to be upright.

This mid-night math, done through half-opened eyes with a half-conscious mind, inevitably ignites a sense of pressure to relax, to make the most of however much time I have left.

But today, I didn’t have to worry about any of that.

Each glance at the clock only served as a reminder that what the clock read was of no concern at all.

In fact, my only consideration was not sleeping too late so as not to interfere with my ability to indulge in my favorite pastime:

The afternoon nap.

*****

This originally appeared in 100 Naked Words.