High Anxiety: Sleeping with One Eye Open

Would I call myself a nervous, high-anxiety person? No, I would not, but this is just another example of how my husband and I have differing opinions on things. There is ONE area of nervousness, however, that I will, and DO, admit to, and that is the fear of oversleeping into the Breakfast hours here at the Lodge … the daily preparations for which I am solely responsible.

I am without a doubt a Morning Person and always have been. Although I’m well into middle-age I could probably count the number of mornings I’ve ‘slept-in’ till 7 a.m. in my entire life on 2 or 3 fingers. In the 6 years that we’ve owned The Lodge, I have never ONCE overslept or missed making a breakfast -- or even come close, a pretty good track record really, considering that encompasses nearly 2000 mornings so far. And yet it is an irrational and ever-present fear, and is why, for the last 6 years, I have found myself waking up all night long to see how much more time I have before it’s time to get up! I know, I know … that’s crazy. Yes, I DO set an alarm clock just in case, although it brings me little comfort, because I am afraid it won’t go off! (It never HAS gone off, by the way … I always wake up well before the alarm rings). So to confront my fear with some self-therapy, I ask myself: What is the WORST possible thing that could happen if I overslept and didn’t get breakfast out in time? Being greeted by 99 angry guests in the lobby, all booing and hissing and threatening to write Trip Advisor about what a bad Lodge Lady I am? This preposterous scene makes me laugh, but doesn’t give me any more peace of mind. Did I mention that my husband calls me obsessively compulsive? Where could he get such a notion?

Today was the closest I’ve ever come to that worst nightmare of mine, and to make matters worse, it was Labor day weekend, a FULL house, swarms of people. I set my alarm … two of them, actually … a WestBend kitchen timer, and I set it NOT for the time I want to be awakened, but for the number of hours and minutes I want to sleep. Two alarms, set to go off 5 minutes apart, just in case! Granted I was exhausted last night when I set them. It had been a HUGE, full-house weekend, after a HUGE, full-house month, but I KNOW I checked and double checked that timer before I went to sleep. At 6 am today I awoke with a start … not from the sound of the alarm, but a full hour after said alarm was to have rung. YIKES!!!! I hate to feel rushed in the morning. How did this happen? 6:00 still gave me plenty of time to get the entire breakfast out a whole hour early … Uh, I'm not saying my husband is right, but maybe I am a little more anxious than I truly need to be …