It’s a quarter to midnite Wednesday night.  I just walked past Reuben’s room.  I stopped and listened.  To my surprise, he was not snoring.

After Reuben was gone with his boyfriend to the Caribbean’s for a Christmas cruise I was shocked when he came back and I heard his snoring through the walls again.  Two weeks was all it took for me to adjust.  Silence at bedtime.  I texted Reuben’s boyfriend the night Reuben came back and I was like, Garret, how do you do it?  How do you sleep next to a furnace, a vacuum cleaner, and a vibrator? 

It’s like trying to sleep while sandwiched between a washing machine and a dryer both going at full speed.   In times like this, I really appreciate how sleep occurs in cycles.  The gentle wheezing of the prewash.  Followed by the agitation of the churn cycle.  And then the furious spin cycle – his breathing seems to grow faster and faster.  Finally, the first rinse: oxygen is released and you can hear the water being gushed forth into a desert.  I can hear Reuben snoring through the walls, through my closet full of clothes, then through the thick wood paneling of my closet doors. 

Garret said, it’s what happens when you love someone. 

I wonder if it’s nights like tonight where it makes it bearable for Garret.  Or if it even matters.  The nights when Reuben doesn’t snore.  Is this what you look forward to when you’re in a relationship with someone who snores as loud as Reuben: a quiet night’s sleep?

Garret actually said to Reuben, I miss you the nights when we sleep in different cities because I miss hearing you next to me.

Do you think falling in love qualifies you for sainthood?

I don’t snore, but…

I talk in my sleep.

In Chinese.  Full on sentences, too.  I’ve been told I take on different characters.  Apparently, I even converse with myself. 

I went camping once with some of my ex roommates where we all slept in one tent.  Even though we live in the same apartment we’ve never gone to sleep together.  We each have our own room. 

The next day at camp the first thing they said was, girl, I didn’t know you spoke Chinese.

And then they said, it was like trying to sleep through the Chinese Cultural Revolution.  

Tags: life