sleeping

One thing I've noticed in the past several months is how much I like being asleep. I sleep all the time--probably ten to twelve hours a day, and when I was doing the chemo I would sleep fifteen or sixteen hours a day at least--probably more.

Sleeping is one of my favorite things to do these days. Sleeping and watching streaming video off my Netflix account. Even when you're healthy sleeping feels pretty good. But now it's more than that, because sleeping is pretty much the only time I experience life like I used to, in a body that works like it's supposed to. For a while something--either the drug treatments or maybe just this tumor itself--kicked out my brain's capacity to dream. But now it's back again, and I like it so much I just kind of want to stay there, looking around at all the pretty stuff in my brain and doing stuff like I used to. I always wake up inspired--though inspired, alas, to go back to sleep, since I quickly remember that I can't actually do any of those things or go to any of those places I just dreamed about.

BUT, I am going to say that the nighttime dreams are part of what keep you going and that keep you optimistic and hopeful, which is what everyone seems convinced is the key to getting over a blight like this one. You keep telling yourself the end is in sight and you think about all the great things you're going to do in the future. I've never found that "you've got to keep fighting" image particularly helpful in terms of my own illness, though that's the one everyone seems particularly fond of. "Fighting cancer" makes me think of duking it out in a boxing arena or something. That's not a pleasant image or something to look forward to--if anything, it's just the opposite. And since I don't feel particularly pugilistic right now, the metaphor just doesn't do a thing for me.

So instead these nice dreams remind me of all the things I used to like to do, so I can put them in a list to look at periodically and make plans for the future, when, presumably, I will be able to do them again.