napping the life out of me

It's not that my friends are all so amazing, beautiful, talented, well-traveled and accomplished that makes me absolutely crazy with self-loathing. It's that they're so friggin' motivated on top of all that. They get shit done, you know? Done. No questions. No kvetching. Just done. D-Over easy-N-E. Done. And for the life of me, I can't figure out how they do it.

I mean, it seems we all sort of started out in the same place, but even with some vagaries in education and upbringing accounted for, I should still be further up the food chain of life than I am right now. And let me tell you, I had FOUR internships in college! FOUR. I had promise! I had potential! I had a resume!

And rereading that paragraph, it seems to me that at some point in time I had motivation, too.

Apparently, it's fizzled.

I think it's the napping. I think the napping has been the doom of me. I really, really love the napping.

I have a fabulous idea to write about or the kernel of a vision for a painting or for once I'm motivated to clean my house and inevitably the siren song of the nap beckons, trumping the life out of all other activities. I LIVE for the nap.

I'd go so far to say that it's a passion.

Which suhcks. The fact that napping is the one concrete passion I can pinpoint at this point in my life irks the hell out of me. No one ever became famous or built a multimillion dollar portfolio while taking part in sleep studies, for goodness sake! And frankly, having wracked my brain, that's the only "profession" I can think of to satisfy the cravings of an inveterate napper like myself. (Though on the upside, I do meet the man of my dreams on a regular basis. Of course, on the downside, he stays there and sadly he's as likely to manifest himself as a 74-year-old postal worker with eczema as he is Brad Pitt. More likely, actually.)

But I digress.

In search of the answer to wild success and fulfilling achievement, I've done some informal surveys of my amazingly beautiful, well-traveled and talented friends who have fashioned themselves into vice presidents, successful entrepreneurs, up-and-coming actors, published authors, government movers, scientific shakers, happy mothers and thriving wives and there is one glaring difference that that sets these motivationistas apart from me -- lack of sleep.

I actually have one friend who throws up if she sleeps too much. I have others who crawl out of their beds at three and four in the morning to fondle their computers or throw paint at walls or vacuum their living rooms. People are writing dissertations and knocking the kinks out of business plans while I accomplish nothing more productive than finding the cool side of the pillow.

I know you're thinking it: Which came first? The chicken or the depression?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sleep equals depression. She must be depressed. Go get yourself some Zoloft and perk the hell up. Blah, blah, blah. But the thing is, I'm not depressed. I've been depressed. This ain't depression. This is a joy for sleeping. This is an ease of life. This is a lack of anxiety. A peace, if you will, of mind and spirit. And a simultaneous fear of rocking the boat.

But having written that, I know for a fact that I kind of like boat rocking. You meet the best people when treading water post swamping and truthfully I haven't gotten my ears wet in a while.

. . .

My bed's just too comfortable. My pillows too soft. My dog too snuggle-able. And trading all that in for a sleep number bed of nails seems a fool's errand. A fool's errand and yet. . . .

And yet.