I once had someone jokingly ask if I was a vampire.

“How many hours of sleep do you normally get a night?” The question comes from everywhere– doctors, coworkers, my parents. “Eight” is always the preferred response, most people respond that they six to seven, with a sad sigh and a wave of the hand, a universal symbol that says, It’s not enough, but it is what it is.

I, however, was always proud to respond, “Oh, four or five. Six if I’m lucky, but I’ve never slept more than eight unless I was sick.” I would smile, proud that my body seemed to need less rest than other’s, and nonchalantly shrug when people seemed surprise. Maybe my internal processor was just churning too fast to rest much; maybe I just recovered quickly. Mostly, I just enjoyed the small sense of self-importance.

Cut to the last month, where it feels like I’ve been doing nothing but sleeping as many hours as I can. I nap often– wrapped in a blanket on my couch, after working for an hour on a weekend morning, curled onto the tiny bench in my classroom between classes. If I can find a spare ten minutes, I’ll turn into myself, let my eyes go soft, and shut down.

I’ve been trying to understand what’s been happening to my body, since I’ve always struggled to sleep, including a two-month bout of insomnia a year ago that knocked the life out of me in a powerful way.

Since overcoming that insomnia, I had still never become much of a deep sleeper. I’d get my six hours, normally waking up midway through, to the dismay of my partner. Recently, though, my body has been in a perpetual state of sloth, as though I am trying to recover from some kind of illness.

Maybe I am. Over the past four months, I have reverted to many of the same, problematic behaviors I had a year ago. I move so fast I forget to breathe. When I finally am forced to sit still– on a long flight, for example– the air whooshing into my chest hits me like a bucket of ice has been emptied over me. Without warning, events that I had moved through as quickly as I could wash over me, and I am left sitting stunned as I review the tape of my life over the past days or weeks. Was that really me? I ask myself. Did that really happen?

Of course, it’s not as dramatic as all that. I’m known to need a little storm to settle me down sometimes. There aren’t any huge problems in my life, and generally, the process of settling into my seat and reviewing my life has been overwhelmingly positive.

I suppose, if anything, my descent into a week of rest has allowed me to enter into the dream world of my subconscious that I had left untended for too long. Sandra Cisneros, when asked about writing when she presented at my school, said that we need to take solitude to sleep, dream, and look into our own imaginations to be able to write.

So, this is just a reminder to breathe, to rest, perchance to dream. As I prepare to board another long flight home, I am immensely grateful for the week to be surrounded by so much love and care, and look inward. It was, then and now, the time to sleep. Tomorrow is coming too quickly, and I need to get ready.