Why Hibernation Rocks (Or Would, If I Could Manage It)

Hibernation.

I’ve decided it’s my new Dream Lifestyle. Or should be.

Bears do it. So do chipmunks, badgers, hedgehogs, lizards, hamsters, moths and apparently even snails – though if I lived in my personally tailored shell, I’m not sure why I would need a special season to withdraw from the world. At least, not any more than usual, when my role as Irritant Extraordinaire is run down, or the irritations of the Real World irking me become too much. (Insert Irritation of Your Choice Here _______________.)

Could it be my aggravatingly aging laptop? Could it be the late night worry when Kids-Take-Car Syndrome kicks in? Is it the result of too many days of cleaning leading up to the holidays? Or end of year exhaustion, simply because it’s, well, the end of the year?

For some reason, all I want to do is sleep. My legs do not want to walk my body from the hamper to the washing machine. My arms do not wish to engage in any more shopping or cooking activities. My back refuses to bend or stretch in any direction that is remotely associated with taking care of anyone except me, and quite specifically, full body-to-mattress contact.

As in: lie down, close eyes, and sleep.

As in: lie down, read a (real) book, and then sleep.

As in: point to three kinds of homemade soup in the fridge, grunt at teenagers (as they so lovingly seem to do with adults, especially in any pre-noon hour), and then… wait for it… sleep.

As in: Someone else taking care of the “everything” that typically sits squarely in my lap – and no doubt, the laps of millions of parents all across the country. A country, incidentally, in which our frantic pace and employment instability do little to assure us any genuine moment of relaxing – short of ample amounts of culturally sanctified mood enhancing meds.

Hell. My college kids are doing plenty of it right now! It seems they can sleep pretty much anywhere, anytime – planes, trains, automobiles – a floor, a sofa, a chair.

Sure, they’ve earned it. All-nighter after all-nighter. Part-time jobs along with full-time workloads. Then again – they’re young!

As for moi, no amount of coffee is kicking in. No external motivation is generating energy or enthusiasm for anything except aforementioned activities (reading, sleeping, reading and sleeping). And if aforementioned activities were possible, I might actually be able to do something more than imagine myself rested.

I might be rested.

Wouldn’t that rock?

Do human parents suffer from a mid-winter hankering for hibernation? Wouldn’t we all feel so much better with the start of a new year if we could actually have three or four days to retreat to a monastery (a spa would be preferable), to suspend all conversation (ear plugs and locked door?), temporarily renounce “mindful communication” (act like our kids?), dispense with attentive and responsible nurturing (run away from home?), and do as the bears, the chipmunks, the badgers, the hedgehogs, the lizards, the hamsters, and the moths do – not to mention the snails?

What about a movement? Couldn’t we find some communal way to pool our labor resources – us – and provide each other some real downtime? A week or ten days of Simulated Hibernation in which we can rest, renew, and rejuvenate – or at the very least, sleep?

Anyone else feel a pressing need to hibernate?

© D. A. Wolf

Big Little Wolf’s Daily Plate of Crazy