Slumber parties

Last night I lay snuggled between my husband and my cat. Everything was quite. I could tell Trey was asleep because his breathing had gotten slower and heavier. I could tell Moxie was out, cause she had stopped purring and her nose was wistling like it sometimes does in her sleep. And that's when I realized that I was wide awake. I was afraid to move because I didn't want to wake anyone up, but all was quiet and I was wide, wide awake.

It reminded me of being at slumber parties and being the last one to fall asleep. It always seemed like that person, the last one awake, was me. I remember lying there in my sleeping bag, or whatever bedding we had rigged up, listening, hoping someone besides me was awake. I remember whispering softly into the darkness, sending out a signal and waiting for someone, anyone, to answer back. I hated being the last one awake at slumber parties, and yet it seemed I always was.

When I was little, more often than not, I would end up calling my parents in the middle of the night to come pick me up. I guess that makes me seem kind of lame but *apparently* I just couldn't hack it. I think my parents started to expect it. I liked the fun before bed but once everyone was asleep and I wasn't? That didn't really do it for me. And to top that off, usually I would psyche my self out. When I was little it was just general scared-of-the-darkness. I don't remember what I was afraid of but I know I was always afraid of something. And in a sleeping bag, on the floor, in a strange house it's a lot harder to hide from imagined fears than it is in your own bed with your parents close at hand. When I got older scary movies, practically a staple at slumber parties, where what kept me up. Of course, by then, I was too old to call home to be rescued. So I didn't get much sleep.

The scariest slumber party I remember wasn't from movies or imagined fears though. When I was just a little tyke, ok, fourth grade, my friends and I had befriended this unpopular girl at school. We decided to spend the night at her house one time, I think it was her birthday. Her dad was really sick and he slept out in the living room in an armchair. I don't know why but I was basically terrified of her dad. And the living room was where we were to spend the night as well. I suspect it was his ragged breathing through his oxygen tubing in the night that did it. There was no way I was spending the night there. And I wasn't the only one who called home.

I always wondered if we had hurt that girl's feelings. It's not like her life wasn't hard enough, then to have all her friends leave her birthday party in the middle of the night...well. I just hope we had enough tact to come up with a reason that wasn't related to her dad. I hope I said I wasn't feeling well, something. I heard her dad died a few years later.

So I guess I basically don't really like slumber parties. I mean, they are ok now. In later years I liked hanging out with my friends and sleeping over well enough. But mostly, I'm a homebody. I would just rather be at home. That way, if I'm the last one awake, I can just put notes in my phone about slumber parties so I can write a blog later. And then I can roll over in my husband's arms and fall asleep, content.