When You Need the Day to Start Over

I walked down the stairs and through the dark house at 3am and found him on the couch playing X-Box with his friends.

I already knew he was there, because his voice had carried upstairs through the wall the high wall the family room shares with our bedroom through some quirky addition to our original house, at 1:45. I had thought at the time that he would be coming to bed soon and that I would be able to just go back to sleep.

He continued to play, and while I was glad he was enjoying himself, I was angry at how inconsiderate he was being to the fact that I was trying to sleep. Finally, when 3am rolled around and it became apparent that not only was he still playing but I still wasn't sleeping, I went downstairs. I might go so far as to say I stormed. Just a little.

I could've handled it a lot better than I did.

I could've stated that his voice was carrying up to our bedroom and could he please be more quiet and then turned around and walked back up to bed.

I didn't.

Instead, a week's worth of not sleeping well took over, and I stood there for about 30 seconds, exhausted and angry at having been woken up so early, when I'm already waking up at 3am on my own, and bellowed at him, "Shut it off!"

He didn't say anything for a minute or two, but then spoke to his friend through the mic and said, "I think I'm going to get going." Some chatter on the other end was followed with, "Yah, I woke Beth up."

It might have been the laughter that pushed me over the edge. It wasn't his laughter, and I know his friend, who probably wasn't laughing that I was up, but more likely that he knew trouble was brewing at my house.

Either way, as there was some more talking/listening, I repeated my order, because that is what it was, honestly, an order, and as he started to put his stuff away I let loose. I barked out that he had woken me up at 1:45, but I thought perhaps it might be OK, because I thought he would be on his way to bed.. but CLEARLY (I raised my voice at that) I was wrong and he had no intention of coming to bed because here it was 3am and he was still playing. However, I was NOT coming back to bed because I wasn't about to spend the short amount of sleep I might be able to salvage out of the rest of the night listening to him snore.

Off he went, and I tried to get some more sleep on the couch, but failed miserable.

He finally woke up at almost 11am, after I had been awake for 9 hours and was fighting a raging headache and eyes that felt like sandpaper.

He came in to see me after his shower, and he apologized for being inconsiderate both about the loud voice, and for sleeping half the day away.

I told him that I wanted to accept his apology, but at that moment I was still feeling tired and headachy and my eyes hurt and I just couldn't do anything with it, but thanked him.

It was a testament of how far we both have come. The apology, the acceptance of it, and that from right there, we were able to move forward and have a good rest of the day together. I can look at the whole thing and see where I went wrong and what I could've done better.