Life was fragile and fleeting and one had to be cautious sure, but I would risk death if it meant I could sleep all day and become a whole new person. And I figured I was smart enough to know in advance if the pills were going to kill me.
-- The narrator (chapter 1)

Importance: The narrator claims that she is not suicidal, but her actions, and even her words in this case, tell a different story. She genuinely believes that if she can sleep through a year of her life she might emerge reborn as an entirely new person, but she is also completely okay with the possibility of death. Her depression and emotional repression are so severe that she no longer feels that life is worth living. Sleeping is a way for the narrator to check out of life temporarily, a sort of simulation of death.

If I had been a man, I...
-- The narrator (chapter 1)