Stayin' Alive

I’m alive! You probably assumed as much, but given that my weekly-ish letter has become my whenever-I’m awake-and-not-utterly-exhausted letter, maybe you figured that keeping an infant alive had gotten the best of me? Almost.

I’ve always known that sleep is a requirement for me to function normally. Back in prep school, my peers would sit awake and mostly alert in class after a long night of procrastinating and studying. I would have my head on my desk in the back of the room trying not to drool on my notebook. In college, my classmates would brag about pulling all-nighters in succession. I tried an all-nighter once and slept straight through my next day of classes.. I would try burning the midnight oil as a young professional and then head to work thinking that I would simply catch up on sleep the following night. Wrong again! I would sometimes pass out while sitting upright at my desk. I have spent much of my life, outside of these embarrassing instances, getting 8+ hours a night and then we had a baby.

I have never been more perpetually sleep deprived as I have been for the past two months. There have been nights where I sleep as little as four hours…total! And that tally makes me the sound sleeper in the house. Yeye has gone weeks (weeks!) without sleeping at all. AT ALL. If I hadn’t see it with my own bleary eyes, I wouldn’t have believed it, yet here we are, eleven weeks into parenthood, sleeping surprisingly little and not dead.

Thanks to everyone who has sent an email or text message into the twilight zone. I have received your transmissions and hope to respond someday. Until then, I will simply believe all of you parents when you say it gets better. My God, I hope so.

Peace,

Alan

P.S. Joshua Arí is living his best life: nursing on demand and sleeping whenever he damn-well pleases.

P.P.S. Here’s one for all the sleepy parents out there, and shout out to Lior for informing me that the Bee Gees were not Black: