Excuses

Yeah, I know I’m late again. It’s not as if I can’t wake up on time. I have three alarm clocks, you know. My mother knocks at my door each morning. I have no trouble getting up, which I think is the primary source of my problem. Let me explain.

My alarm clock is the siren of a fire truck. I wake up, drag myself out of bed. As I open my bedroom door, there’s the burgundy sofa, with new silk covers and

My alarm clock is the siren of a fire truck. I wake up, drag myself out of bed. The sand feels warm under my feet, pebbles wet from the ebbing tide. The sky is deep blue with purple and orange hues at the horizon. The sun kisses my face, I’m late for work. I cover my sequined two-piece swim suit with white fur coat, put black fish net stockings on and slip into a Happy Feet bakya. As I leave Batanes

I wake up. I’m on a wet cement floor that smells like fish. I get up and run, trying to evade the man with a butcher’s knife. The wet market is crowded with TV cameras and rallyists; Mar Roxas is inspecting fresh meat and refuses to help me. I scream but the voices of market vendors drown me out. I fly like Jackie Chan from stall to stall, ceiling to walls, and seize a police motorcycle in the hope of escaping the butcher’s knife.

“Mag bra ka!” screams the butcher with a knife. I look down and I’m wearing an oversized white t-shirt with a Red Cross logo, braless.

Scared, I squeeze the throttle and the motorbike zooms towards MoA, but soon the butcher is riding a horse like a jockey. I am driving at maximum speed but the butcher’s horse seems to be bobbing up and down beside me, almost catching up. I switch the sirens on and close my eyes hoping I can scare the horse. Then

I wake up to a soft-lighted room, it’s warm and cozy, New Age music at the background. “Swedish massage?” Cesar Montano with hairy chest and a British accent asks, looking lean and tanned in his Egyptian loin cloth. I blink my eyes and go back to sleep. This is too weird, even for me, and besides, I have to get to

I wake up in a bowl of oatmeal with sago. It feels rather nice, warm but a little slimy. I try to swim out of the bowl, but as anyone who has wakened up in a bowl of oatmeal with sago knows, this is easier said than done. After a while, I decide to eat my way out instead. Wishing that the milk is non-fat, I nibble at the sago and

I wake up and drag myself out of bed. As I open my bedroom door, there’s the burgundy sofa and I think, here we go again…

And that’s why it takes me so long to get up. It happens almost every morning so it must be chronic, and you wouldn’t blame someone who’s suffering from something chronic, would you? That’s discrimination.

Silence. Legs shifting.

So does this mean I don’t get the deduction?

Delayed sleep-phase disorder

I envy people who fall asleep as soon as they close their eyes, or their backs hit the bed. My sister falls asleep standing up in the bus. Counting cows inside my head doesn’t work; I change animals to count through the years---ants, ducks, penguins, and I would still be counting by sunrise. I also tried counting bubbles, stars, cracks on the walls and ceilings, tiles in the bathroom. But sleep hides in places I can’t find.

I never cared much for sleeping even when I was a kid. The afternoon naps imposed by my parents were always met with resistance…like eating vegetables or brushing my hair when I get out of bed in the morning. As I grow older, I learned to eat some vegetables, and was compelled to brush my hair regularly lest I’d be mistaken as an escapee of a mental asylum. But sleeping has remained something that I regard with dislike. It interferes with things that I’d rather be doing.

The bad sleeping hygiene resulted to sleeplessness even when I wanted and needed to sleep. By mid-20’s, I would go on weeks, even months without a decent night sleep. My job was 9-5 and it was a struggle getting to work on time. I tried a cocktail of sleeping/wake-up pills, alcohol, relaxation techniques, exercise, marijuana and other home remedies---but they were all temporary solution, nothing really worked.

Insomnia runs in my family. My mother used to take Valium, my brother had transient insomnia when he was a teenager. So we all thought I was also suffering from the same sleep disorder. About 3 years ago, I went to a sleep clinic and consulted a sleep expert after seeing her on TV. The doctor’s diagnosis was not insomnia but another form of sleep disorder called Delayed Sleep-Phase Syndrome (DSPS).

DSPS is a chronic disorder of the timing of sleep, peak period of alertness and other rhythms. People with DSPS tend to fall asleep well after midnight and also have difficulty waking up in the morning. Sufferers manage only a few hours sleep a night during the working week, then compensate by sleeping until the afternoon on weekends. Sleeping in on weekends, and/or taking long naps during the day, gives people with the disorder relief from daytime sleepiness but also perpetuates the late sleep phase.

It’s difficult to explain a sleep disorder to those who have no difficulties falling asleep. It’s like describing a green leaf to a blind person.

Through the years, my family, friends and co-workers have come to accept that I’m a nocturnal creature. I feel most creative, alert and more active at night. Much as I want to be at my desk at 9 a.m. like everybody else, it’s hopelessly difficult.

I would love to be “cured” and start a new way of life, like a "normal" person.