Bitten By the Brittany Bug

Flash back to Peru 5 months ago. One minor, humorous detail of our expedition was that every night, Abigail and I would lay in bed for hours before we fell asleep. Sometimes we'd talk, sometimes we'd just lay there, shivering, and occasionally I'd lay in bed and watch Abigail as she'd hear a strange noise and then hop out of bed and dart to the window, keeping watch in sheer terror.

 Either way, Brittany was the same every night. We'd have our family prayer, tuck ourselves into our beds and we'd lie there for a minute or two before Abigail or myself would pose a question or a thought that we were thinking about. "Isn't Luz Elena's hair gorgeous?" "Do you think Herman reads our blogs?" "Did you hear that so and so is engaged!" "What are we doing here?" "I've worn this shirt everyday for the past 4 days." You know… things like that.

 If Abigail posed the question, I would answer....and If I posed the question, Abigail would answer. Brittany never asked nor answered because that girl can fall asleep in 30 seconds flat. It was seriously unbelievable. We could not comprehend how it took at least 45 minutes of lying in bed before Abigail and I even started drifting off, while Brittany was out literally the moment her head hit the pillow. She missed out on some great late night talks and some even greater late night scares, but oh how jealous I was of her when our early morning runs came around. Her alarm would go off and I'd dig deeper into my covers as she energetically popped out of bed and dragged us out with her.

Well something happened during my last week in Peru. This was our travel/site seeing week . Starting that week, I caught the Brittany bug… and I still have it!

This was one of the places that we stopped and visited.. I'm sure it was awesome... but all I remember is getting woken up from my nap on the bus, then getting back on the bus and falling right asleep. Whatever we did in between my naps...kinda fuzzy.

 I had it bad that last week, every single time my head hit a pillow, or even if I was sitting upright in a bus/train/plane seat, I was out in a matter of minutes….even if I wasn't even tired! I slept . And slept. And slept, no matter how uncomfortable I was. I'd sleep for hours during the day as we'd travel from site to site, and then arrive at my hotel room that night and slept the entire night there too. I have never slept more in my entire life than I did on that week….my week of vacation. What shocked me most is how quickly I'd fall asleep. I've always been the, "in bed by midnight, asleep by 1:30am" kind of girl. So the fact that I no longer had that 45+ minutes to just think and contemplate lifes mysteries, was so odd.

On a short train ride traveling through the beautiful Andes mountains on our way to the town of Machu Picchu. Breet and Avi took hundreds of  gorgeous pictures of the amazing scenery we passed through... I slept the entire way.

 Well I thought it might be just an end of the trip, "finally catch up on the hours and hours of sleep you've been deprived of while in Peru" kind of thing… but I still have it!

I turn out the lights, hop into bed and then BOOM! I'm out like a like. I remember up at school (specifically while rooming with Shae in Fall 2010) I'd listen to the clock as it would tick with every second. I'd count those ticks until I lost count and then I'd start over and count again. This is the only way I could get my mind to stop anticipating/wondering/ worrying/ stressing/ thinking/contemplating/ imagining etc. and actually fall asleep.

The other night I hopped into bed and remembered that practice, and began counting. I probably got no further than 20 before I was out for the night.

I'm finally getting a glimpse into what I couldn't comprehend with Brittany. I have no idea why all of a sudden I'm a pro-sleeper. Maybe I grew out of my other sleeping habits, or maybe I did just get bitten by the Brittany bug. Either way, I'm not complaining!

Love, Noelle