When my alarm sounded off this morning I rolled over with groan and almost onto the floor as the opening notes of The Band Perry’s All Your Life rang loudly through the air.  While I lay awake staring at the ceiling I seriously debated hitting the snooze, turning over and sinking right back among the pillows.

I actually got as far as switching off the music, resetting my alarm for two hours later and pulling the covers up to my chin when I heard it.

That little voice inside my head, my mini motivator and my personal cheerleader.  If she was a real person she would have been looking at me with one quirked eyebrow, a straight mouth and a no nonsense attitude.  If she could speak she would have said, “Don’t sleep your life away.”

Well that did it.  I was awake.  Completely and irreversibly wide awake.  As oft happens in my life I began to reflect, “Is it truly possible to sleep ones life away?”

I suppose physically, yes.  There have been many times when I’ve slept over the recommended seven or eight hours a day, and there have also been more days than I can count when I’ve only grabbed maybe two hours at most.

Is sleep really worth it? Sometimes, heck yeah.  When my eyes are threatening to close in the middle of a lecture or a tutorial then yes, I need sleep.  I love that sleep, the kind that allows me to drift straight into dreamland as soon as my head touches the pillow.

Other times I wish regular sleep wasn’t a requirement for sanity or good health.  There are times I just want to spend all night talking, writing, reading – existing.  I want to spend every single twenty four hour period I have left on this Earth exploring, learning and enjoying life.

Nighttime is different from daytime [I know, thank you Captain Obvious] but it’s more than the fact that the sun has gone to bed or that the stars are out.  There are certain realizations that can only come to light when it’s past midnight and the world feels like it’s spinning even more slowly than it is right now.   By the light of day those same dreams and understandings are shattered, transformed into fears and worries.

So, I got up.  I tried to sleep, I really did, but in the end I got up and threw open my curtains to let the sunlight shine in.

I don’t want to sleep my life away.