Sleeping With The Enemy

Until recently, my sleep gear has been a t-shirt and track pants. I am not one to get fancy and fussy. In my younger days, I could not relate to women who did their hair and fussed about how they looked when they went to bed. For god sake, neither you nor anyone else see you when you are sleeping. These were not the women I connected with.

But for the last year or so, undenial changes to my body and my circadian rhythm - I sleep poorly, my periods are shorter - suggest I have entered perimenopause.

The most drastic change has been an increase in body temperature. Not hot flashes. I am just generally warmer than everyone else in the room. I insist on lowering the heat and opening windows while The Man and The Boy shiver in sweaters and socks. When my mother comes for dinner, I strip down to my tank top and turn up the heat so she would take her coat off.

Being such a hot woman, I wake up several times a night from sweating. I can no longer sleep in my track pants. This sent me to the stores looking for lighter sleepwear. Fortunately, a Joe Fresh opened in the hood this year. I love Joe.

They sell stylish, casual cotton clothing. Cheap. Really cheap. Most of all, they have a good selection of sleepwear with clean, simple lines in soft colours. None of the bold patterned, cutesy, garish gear of department stores. This past winter, I picked up some moccasin slippers. Warm without my feet shouting at me. Last week, I picked up a pair of pink silk slippers. Very nice. Looking pretty under my new pink pajama bottons.

I didn't mind that there were 70-year-old ladies buying the same clothes as me. In fact, I picked up several pairs of pajamas with short, capri and long bottoms, and we giggled at each other about how reasonably priced the store was.

I gotta to say, not only am I comfortable sleeping in my new pajamas, I feel darn feminine. I now go to bed and sink into sleep. Yes, my bed is a place of rest, not a battleground. I don't have to be ready to out run anyone there. I don't need my t-shirts and track pants any more. Why did I ever scoff at pretty pajamas?