a novice's guide to sleeping away from home.

I should probably start with a disclaimer to save any poor soul who has accidentally wandered onto my blog in search of advice. I won't be giving any, the title is a misnomer. If you are a regular reader then you have probably already assumed this is the case. I am in the habit of doing this. 


I am probably a little too attached to my own bed here in my apartment. I don't spend all day in it or anything, I am usually up by about 7 or at least awake at that time on days that I'm not working but I sleep better there than anywhere else. I was always like that growing up but back then it was my childhood bedroom I felt like that about. No matter where I went, I would look forward to coming home to the comfort of my own bed in my room that was filled with a quiet darkness at night. 

I remember once staying in a cousin's house in Dublin and waking during the night looking for the bathroom but I was so disorientated by my unfamiliar surroundings that in dark, I climbed a bookcase trying to find my way out of the room. I made such a racket doing this that someone came to investigate and when they switched on the light I was perched on the shelf and nowhere near the door. Many years have passed since I have moved out of home and I have countless bedrooms that  I claimed as my own but it always taken me time to settle. I find it hard assimilating to city noises and the extra street lights and the comings and goings of neighbours. When I au-paired in Switzerland (aged 20) I found it positively unsettling to be able to hear the footsteps of strangers above me.

All of this has lead to many nights missed sleep while I get used to new surrounding, making adjustments each time. In college I got into the habit (because of all the light that seeped into my room) of sleeping with a sleep mask but I had to keep my bedroom door closed as I would worry that otherwise someone would get into my room without my knowledge while I slept. Quite an unlikely worry but I was living in college accommodation in an apartment block full of strangers and it bred caution in me.

Now I have a lovely big double bed all to myself and I wonder how I managed without it. Where else could I sleep like a star without a limb poking out beneath the covers. I have four big squashy pillows and one soft cushion that lives in the bed. A fluffy blanket for beneath the covers for a perisher at heart and need to be cosy on all but the warmest nights of the year and of course a duvet to hide beneath when the alarm clock starts beeping insistently from the night-stand. My room is fairly dark and what the curtains don't block out, the sleep mask takes care of and it's quiet , whatever way my apartment complex was constructed my room seems cocooned from most night time noise. It's in essence an ideal sleeping chamber and all would be well if only I could sleep there all of the time. 

Last night I spent quite the restless night in my boyfriends place. I find it hard to settle there. There aren't enough pillows so my head feels too flat, the duvet doesn't make me  feel snugly at all, all of the light seems to come in his bedroom window and the bedroom faces out onto a courtyard so every dog bark, cat miaou and partying neighbour can be heard from the bedroom. The biggest problem of all is that it's not my room. At one point around three when I was lying awake, I contemplated driving home just to get more sleep. 
I should probably stay there more often in the hopes of eventually assimilating to the unfamiliar conditions but I just like my own bed too damn much. 

I don't think I am ever likely to be known as Laura, the adaptable one or as a person who does particularly well without sleep so for now I am going to guard it and my bed preciously and I will work on all the rest in time.