Grumpy? Me, never
Appetites between couples have always been at odds. With one person eventually objecting to having to perform half an hour of horizontal gymnastics before they melt into their cocoon of dreams and thoughts and eventually sleep. The appetite we overlook in choosing our life partners is sleep.
Does it matter that the person whose hand you hold who lights you up like Sainsbury’s when the strips go on and the fridges hum needs 3 hours less sleep than you do per night? Probably not. But as the years tumble past, the person who needs more sleep can take on a mantel of, erm, supreme grumpiness.
Already recovering from years of child/career-related sleep deprivation, she is often trying to jump start her career, run a household, while staring into the abyss that is 50 – while her hormones rage and she feels an urge to listen to gardening programmes while wanting to upgrade her kitchen just as her family’s finances are in a good place – and moaning that everyone is becoming so unrock ‘n’ roll and suburban these days. She is baking, aching and shaking her fist at a world that barely notices her.
So sleep deprivation is never a winner. Being woken at 5.30am or midnight by a cat, a husband or a kid can tip her not to temper but to the damp, grey grumpiness that drizzles down upon all around her. She can get grumpy about toilet skid marks barely brushed by male companions. She can get grumpy about receptionists and waiters who fail to acknowledge her presence, prompting her to waltz out of cab offices and restaurants.
Wine
She can get grumpy about people who put their trainers or shoes on the empty train seats in front of them, leaving behind molecules of mud and dog sh*te for someone else to sit down upon.
And then she complains that puberty has left her child grumpy when he or she has been learning at the knee of a master. Her only break from the grind of her own teeth is a bottle of wine and a girlfriend of the same age who also suffers from the default grumpiness of tired middle-age womanhood.
So although I’m only talking about a friend of a friend of a friend of mine, this type of woman sounds rather familiar to me. Perhaps if she could get a little more sleep, she’d be lighter and funnier and less grumped up. But then again, maybe not.
[The views expressed here are mine alone]
