Night Terrors

I know a lot of people my age, couples, who sleep apart.  Not because the spark has gone, not because they are fighting, not because they’re on the verge of splitting up.  No, it’s for a much more odious reason than that.  A reason so hideous, I scarce speak word of it here.  But for the good of all, I must.  In order to talk about this horrible subject, I had to do some serious self examination and face some of my oldest fears.  The reason many couples sleep apart is….

Snoring.  Yes, you heard me, snoring.  I classify the existence of snoring up there with the existence of intestinal gas.  Why did God have to create these two things?  I mean he created the whole world and everything in it, couldn’t he have left out snoring and intestinal gas?  At least gas has the redeeming quality of entertaining ten year old boys.  Snoring, I cannot think of one redeeming thing to say about it.

One of the best stories I ever heard regarding snoring cannot be told here to protect the innocent.  Well, to protect the privacy of someone who would bean me if I ever told.  But I do have a second best story that’s pretty good.  When I was a little girl… How many times have you seen me write that?  Oh geez, she’s going to tell another pitiful story from her childhood.  Please spare us.

No, I will not.  The truth must be told.  When I was a little girl, I had for parents the two loudest snorers the world has ever known.  One night when I was about six, I woke to the sound of what I thought must be a locomotive coming through our house.  Like the Polar Express, only on steroids, without a creepy Tom Hanks conductor, but just as window rattling loud.

I crept from my bed, wandering into the upstairs hall.  “Maybe Mom is sewing.” I thought.  “No her sewing machine isn’t that loud.  Vacuuming?  No, not in the middle of the night, and our vacuum isn’t that loud.”  I went back to the locomotive idea, which terrified me, but was the most plausible answer.

Then my childhood innocence was shattered.  It dawned on me then.  This must be what snoring sounds like.  Now I know there are other night time sounds a child should never have to hear coming from behind their parents’ bedroom door.  That would have been traumatizing enough.  But this?  This was much worse.

With the other sound, at least I would have had some hope of later realizing it’s not such a bad thing.  With snoring, there would be no such hope.  I was a smart kid, and even at the tender age of six, I knew what this meant.  With two parents who snored this badly, the chance of my not snoring as an adult was close to nil.

I walked back to bed, my head hung down, my little dressing gown belt dragging sadly on the ground behind me.  For on that night I learned the ugly truth.  From that night forward, I would have to live with a ticking time bomb.  I knew it was only a matter of time before my innocent little nasal passages would betray me.

This childhood trauma was however, as many childhood traumas are, to go underground for many years.  By some mysterious blessing, when I fell back asleep that night, and believe me it wasn’t easy, my mind was wiped clean of the hideous event I’d witnessed.  Denial is a powerful thing.  A powerfully good thing. Somehow I managed to go into a state of hopeful denial about snoring, which my husband helped me maintain for twenty eight years.  My husband was a very good man.  And also very smart. 

So when a man recently said to me, during a break up, “You snore!”  it was kind of a surprise.  I know, there’s nothing to be ashamed of about snoring.  Most people laugh it off as just another annoyance to deal with.  But for me, maybe because of being so traumatized at such an early age, my fear driven below my own consciousness, it was like a slap in the face.

And now that I’m single again, I dread the thought of having to have the “snoring talk”.  As I’ve stated here, I’d like to get married again, but I don’t like the idea of sleeping separately.  I know lots of people do, but one thing I liked about being married was sleeping in the same bed.

I have a friend who had an ungodly sounding nasal surgery to deal with his snoring.  There was some sleep apnea in there, so I guess it was justified.  The promise was that this surgery would at the same time cure his snoring.  It was at that time I vowed that if I ever got to the place where I snored like my mother, I would do anything to change it.

I guess there’s some residual denial going on, because the “you snore” comment, while it hurt, wasn’t actually “you snore like a locomotive”.  Hope does spring eternal.  I hope to get married again.  I hope to sleep in the same bed as my husband.  And I certainly hope I don’t snore like a locomotive.  Because that surgery sounded like hell on earth.