It's 4 AM and the pillow wrapped half-way around my head is insulation from the snores across the bed. Every night together is like this and I just want it to stop. Steals my nights, that noise.

Sharing a bed again, a room, with someone takes big recalibration. We're not living in one house together yet, but half the week Sam and I stay in one place.

I try to fall asleep first, get deep into REM before the rumbling starts because I remember something now. It's not easy to share my sleeping space. Sam's snores engine-loud; you can hear it down the hall.

I used to wonder why a married couple would ever want separate bedrooms. It seemed to me like sleeping separately was a tell tale sign of T-R-O-U-B-L-E.

We're sold a packaged picture of how happily ever after should look, and it never has more than one bed.

Why is it no one ever tells you about the importance of space before a first marriage? Nobody ever says while you are busy building a life together, don't forget to develop an equally sound life of your own so you maintain a strong sense of self.

These nights together are good practice, just the way sitting in a therapist's office every week hashing out the "how's this going to work" is good practice. Going back into this marriage a second time after two years on my own is, I guess, like preparing for any second marriage. You have the benefit of practice and wisdom and experience that were impossible the first go around.

You have the perspective of age and knowing yourself and your expectations and your limits in way that only comes with years. Lessons hard won and learned slow.

And after two years apart I know this: I like sleeping in my own bed by my own self without a pillow wrapped around my head to dull the snoring. Sex is one thing, but sleep? That's another, and I don't get much of it sharing a bed.