Sleeping through the possible end of the world

I awoke to the klaxon of my phone’s weather alarm, intended to warn me of any potential natural disasters that may wander my way. Heavy rain. Tornadoes. Kidnapped children. All the emergencies.

Still tangled within the web of deep sleep, it took me several moments to recognize that I was both awake and, as a bonus, possibly in mortal danger.

I think I said something along the lines of, “Ugh.” Then again, it could have been, “Aargh,” or possibly just a series of totally incomprehensible gurgling noises. Like I said, I was only half-awake.

Once I’d regained a little of the sense my waking self arguably possesses, I pawed blindly around my nightstand until my hand landed on that cold brick of glass and plastic that occupies so much of my time. Through the searing light of 1,080 glowing dots per inch, my phone warned me that the area in which my home and all the living things within it — two adult humans, one mini adult human, a couple of useless cats and the invisible thing in the corner of our living room that so fascinates them — were currently under threat.

I found this revelation incredibly disheartening, but not for the reason you might expect.

I tippy-tapped through the maze of icons on my weather app until I finally stumbled upon the version of the radar that shows the weather of the future instead of the past. A mass of green and red fog rolled across the map of Northeast Mississippi. According to the forecast, I could expect this wave of primary colors to bring with it heavy wind and rain, thunder and … possibly … some tornadoes.

Believe it or not, I find the uncertain forecast of “possible tornadoes” to be so much worse than “likely tornadoes” or the highly preferable “definite tornadoes,” at least at 3 a.m. on a Thursday morning. You see, “possible tornadoes” gives me the burden of choice.

During situations in which I awaken to find myself only maybe in the path of physical danger, the desire to just close my eyes and let come what may can be overwhelming. You may think it’s easy to select between a few more hours of sleep or being swept away in whirly, swirly death … and you’d be right. But we’re not talking about THAT decision; we’re talking choosing between getting a few more hours of sleep or struggling to stay awake the rest of the night while obsessively staring at live weather coverage, then drifting through the day in a zombie-like state of half-consciousness.

See, not so easy, is it? Don’t bother answering; I can’t actually hear you.

Cultists might be sacrificing goats to Taylor Swift in the middle of my bedroom, but as long as I calculate the risk of having a ritual knife dragged across my own throat as being minimal, I’m just going to roll over and go back to sleep.

But like so many other things, this desire to hit the snooze button on my life no matter the consequences has been complicated by parenthood. It’s one thing when you’re single to weigh the value of your personal physical safety against having to spend the day yawning and complaining to your coworkers about how you only got three hours of sleep, and then decide the latter is far worse. As soon as you’re responsible for the survival of a tiny human being, your priorities change. Or, at least, your priorities get shoved down deep inside in favor of your kid’s priorities. That’s more likely.

So, despite every fiber of my being screaming to go back to sleep that morning, I didn’t. Instead, I sat in bed and listened to the barrage of rain overhead as the storm, which may or may not have contained tornadoes, rolled across our area, and dreaded either outcome of the coming hours.