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Growing up, most girls had their “Must be” lists, you know the ones. With their top five or ten deal breaker attributes their future spouse must be.

Must be hot, as in six feet tall, manicured nails, perfectly tan, and a cross between Liam Hemsworth and Ashton Kutcher with George Clooney’s eyes.

Must be funny, but not be constantly making fun of me.

Must be educated.

Must be able to do laundry, wash dishes, and take out the garbage.

Must be all about me.

I had a different list. Can’t be. As in…

Can’t be a doctor. I know what you’re thinking. But, your hubby, he’s a doc. Well, he wasn’t when we got married. He was a med student.

Can’t be too serious. Life is serious enough on its own.

Can’t be all about himself and his ethnic background. I love diversity.

Can’t be unforgiving every time I mess up. Because I will. Mess up.

Can’t be a snoring sleeper. Possibly the most important criteria on my list.

You see, I grew up, hearing my dad snore. And through the walls, two rooms down, the sound was muffled and bearable. But one weekend, we visited family in their, at the time, Toronto based one bedroom apartment. They set up sleeping arrangements for us in their living room floor, all five of us. My parents took the pull out couch bed and us three siblings found a spot on the carpet.

My dad fell asleep first. And within minutes, he began to emit frequent intervals of earth-shattering snores. I was in shock. I didn’t think it was humanly possible to create such a sound. And repeat it. All night. After two or so hours of lying awake, staring at the ceiling, and counting the seconds till the next snore began, I got up to seek refuge in the kitchen. But without a door between rooms, the several foot separation made no difference. So then I moved to the bathroom. And lined the bathtub with my sleeping bag. But this was an apartment. Not the penthouse at the downtown Hyatt with a ginormous jacuzzi for two. At the age of twelve, I was too long for the tub, and after several shifts in position, I opted to get out, stuff some cotton in my ears, and return to the place of doom: the boom-chika-boom of the living room floor. The cotton did nothing.

Needless to say, I didn’t sleep a wink. And that night I came to two conclusions. One: my mother must be losing a lot of sleep. And two: I will never marry a snoring sleeper. Unless I plan to go to my grave with a tombstone that reads, “Here lies Rajdeep, murderer of her snoring spouse.” Yes. I put it on my list to save the world from one less homicide.

Because sleep is important. It’s up there with oxygen, really. Ask anyone who’s been sleep-deprived for a season. I bet if they did a little reseach, a lot of these prison lifers had a chronic case of insomnia or… lost a fair amound of zzzz’s because of a snorer in their house.

So, I’m devastated to admit that as of late, Hubs has been complaining. That I, woman who hates the very sound of the word, “snore,” have been snoring. Of course, I immediately went into denial. I have a cold. Not really. But my nose is stuffed. The dry winter air is doing it to me. My pillow sucks. I rarely sleep well, so when I do finally fall asleep, I must be so over-exhausted, my vocal chords are just expressing their frustration at how long it took for me to fall asleep.

Explanations do one thing: make you feel a tad better about the situation. They do not, however, change the situation. I, apparently, have crossed to the other side, and become one of them. The very group of people I breathed murderous threats against. At this rate, my life borders the making of a really bad B-movie.

But wait. It gets better. Or worse, depending on who’s losing sleep about this. Hubs snores now, too. And when I’m awake enough to hear it, I nudge his shoulder until he stops. But last night was bad. The clock read 3:00AM when I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up to use the bathroom and returned to a crescendo of music from the other side of our bed. And it was not music to my ears.

So here we are, almost fifteen years into our marriage, changed and changing. And I’m thinking of the vows we made May 24th, 1998. For better or worse. In sickness and in health. Through no snores to snores. Something like that. And I can’t help but laugh. Cuz the jokes on me. And you, Babe.

And then I think, it could be worse. Friend of mine [not mentioning any names here] confessed that her hubs snores so loudly, she actually pulled out her iPhone to video tape the madness of it all. She was awake after all, with nothing better to do. Seemed like a good idea at the time.

Asked my mom the other day, “How do you survive? Have you even had one good night of sleep since you got married?”

“On the nights I fall asleep before your dad,” Mom answered, giving a glimpse of hope to the future.

A future full of snore-filled nights. Hoping spring brings better respiratory conditions, and we return to silent lullabies. Then again, I’m pretty sure complete silence will bother me as well. Thinking my next step might be naps. When the house is empty. The world mostly quiet. And I have the whole bed to myself.

Hmmm? Now, there’s an idea for a blog: To nap or not to nap…

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And you? Have the effects of snoring taken a toll on your life and/or relationships? Do you dare admit you’re one of them? Have you found a brand of earplugs that really works?