Elusive Sleep

3:30 AM.  I was staring at the ceiling, noticing that we don't have cracks, and listening to the soft breathing of Darling Daughter next to me as she slept soundly.  She sleeps soundly whenever she has her security blanket with her: ME. 

I hate waking up at 3:30 and wanting to go back to sleep.  I think the more you wish sleep would come, the more it eludes you.  Your brain starts to wander, and then suddenly you are the Queen of Egypt and it's 600 B.C.  When I was little, I thought creating stories in my head would help me fall asleep, but now it makes my mind WIDE awake.  My brain is ready for more, ready to be creative, spill the words out, and suddenly I am more awake than ever, and I'm still staring at the ceiling but now the clock says 3:33. 

Things that don't work when you have insomnia:

• Counting Sheep: Why would you want to do this anyway?

• Coming Up with Crazy Stories or Alternate Realities in Your Head:  This passes the time, but won't help you get shut eye.  This may help you come up with a wonderful idea for a novel, which may one day be published if you're lucky and/or rich or both.  Everyone can dream right?  Even when you are staring at the ceiling wide awake.

• Drink Warm Milk:  One word: GROSS!!!

To be fair to you all, my audience of 20 people, I don't fight insomnia much these days.  I usually fall off to sleep, and I awake about ten minutes before my alarm.  I think this has to do with my biological clock.  If you go to bed around the same time and wake up around the same time every day, your body sort of regulates itself. 

Yesterday was emotional though and having an emotional day makes you do one of two things: sleep TOO MUCH or sleep NOT ENOUGH.  My body chose NOT ENOUGH last night.  I cried yesterday and then I laughed.  I laughed and laughed and laughed, which was a nice diversion from the crying.  Laughing is a great defense mechanism when emotions are too hard to handle.   

My goal this year was to laugh more, and I think I may have accomplished that in one day.  At 3:30 in the morning, I should have just stepped out of bed and left Darling Daughter Vampire Chicken Princess snoozing soundly, hopped on the computer and started writing.  I could have used the extra time to my advantage.  Instead I reflected on the funeral yesterday. I thought about my friend who lost her mother and how I could help her.  I thought about the color PURPLE.  I didn't come up with any good story lines, plots or climaxes, and I didn't continue to revise my book despite the need.  Part of the reason is my free trial to Word expired, and since I'm a procrastinator I haven't yet downloaded the $9 version my work offers.  I need to get on that, like today.  It's not like I own a typewriter or some other mechanism that could help me set words down on paper: like a pencil and a piece of paper. 

Hopefully if I'm awake at 3:30 tomorrow morning, Word will be installed on my computer, and my brain can relax as I revise, revise, revise.  Or maybe I can work on my 2nd novel, which is a great diversion from revising my first novel. 

The End of the World As We Know It

I couldn't sleep this morning.  I woke up in my bed, stared at the ceiling, cuddled with a little girl who won't stay in her own bed, then I set one foot on the ground and resigned myself to the fact that today is going to be a very long day.  I don't feel well. I went to bed early, which is why I woke up at 3 AM.  I had my coffee, but I want another cup. 

I'm having writer's block this week.  I don't think I'm necessarily getting discouraged, but maybe that's what it is.  Maybe I'm depressed since I can't run or do Taekwondo.  I don't know.  I am cycling, so at least I'm getting some exercise. 

I'm reading too.  A LOT.  I'm almost done with I Am Legend, which I started on Sunday.  The book reads fast, and you can just imagine Neville's solitude as he is the only person left alive in the world, fighting against something he doesn't quite understand.  I realized why reading it yesterday that I love end of the world books.  I loved The Road.  I loved On the Beach.  These are my favorite kind of books, and I wonder why?  Maybe because usually it is one person trying to triumph over a seemingly lost cause.  The underdog becoming the hero.  Naturally, humans are concerned with the end of the world, things as we know it changing completely, and our habitat becoming uninhabitable.  These thoughts and ideas bring up all sorts of questions, such as: what happens when you die, who or what will inhabit the world after we're gone, and then all the questions about how mankind will most likely be the master of their own demise.  Almost all of the end of the world books occur because of some war, some bomb, some human-made nightmare inflicting pain and hurt on others, as well as ourselves.  Human nature.

My Dad told me this joke this week, I guess he saw it in magazine or something, so I had to look it up.  Here it is:

 



 

It made me laugh, because it's so true!  Humans have a tendency to think they are invincible.  They are the strongest, the most powerful, but the truth is: if we destroy the earth, then we destroy ourselves.  Maybe there is a rhyme behind the reason though.  Maybe mankind is meant to make the world unlivable for themselves, thus making it livable for other species to come.  The dinosaurs died off to make room for the humans.  Maybe we're supposed to die off to make room for something else.  Hopefully not vampires, like in I Am Legend.  That would just be plain scary...

 

My thoughts at 4 in the morning are apparently pretty dark, but I do think this is something we need to think about.  It makes me sad that mankind, so much of the time, has so little regard for their habitat.  It makes me sad there are people out there who are killing themselves and others in the name of religion.  It makes me sad there are megalomaniacs in power who "get off" on touting they will nuke their neighbor, just to have some ego power trip.  Sometimes humans' minds are too powerful for their own good.  Sometimes I think it would be better if we were in a less-complicated world or time...

 

 



Goal Post Tuesday April 3, 2012

Goal Post = Football.  This post is not about football though, it's about my goals.  I think, maybe, one of my goals this week will be to sleep. 

I was utterly exhausted last night.  Hubby went out with a friend.  I surfed the Internet, looking at random, mundane stuff, and finally went to bed around 9:30.  Pinterest is such a time suck, seriously.  I could spend all day on there (or night), and it's so visually stimulating.  I digress.  Anyway, I went to bed at 9:30.  I woke up from a dream, in which I thought Hubby was turning off the alarm clock.  I had no idea why he would turn off the alarm clock, because I have work tomorrow today.  Instead, Hubby was doing the one-leg shuffle to the bathroom.  Walking is a lot noisier when you have a cast on your foot, and you have to lean on a walker, or hop places.  He'll make a great Easter bunny this year!  I asked Hubby why he turned off the alarm clock, and he told me he didn't, making me realize it was only a dream.

Then I was laying (lay is the past tense of lie, so I'm using this correctly people!) in bed thinking 5000 thoughts, one of them being how we stillSTILL STILL have not done our taxes.  The other being the 1800 things we have coming up the next couple of weeks: Easter, Number Two's Birthday, a Cake concert, Dance/Ball thingy, Low Country Boil, Taekwondo Testing, Taekwondo Awards, then Earth Day 5K walk, and how I wish my life would slow down sometimes.  Busyness is nice though, because busyness leads to less overthinking, unless apparently it is 3:41 A.M., and you can't fall back asleep.

Anyway--this has become the most rambling post ever, because lack of sleep will do that to you.

I didn't set any concrete goals last week.  I haven't lost weight this week.  My body is still changing and looking better, and I've had a few people compliment me recently on the weight loss.  I can see the change in how my clothes are fitting, even the new clothes my friend so nicely handed down to me! This week, I'm going to lose ONE pound.

Having Hubby out of commission has made me realize how much he does around the house.  I will make a concerted effort to help more.  I will help on the weekends by making a meal every Sunday.  I know I can do this.  I love to cook, mostly only if it is a new recipe.  I like to create and see how it will turn out.  Cooking is sort of like crafting a story.  I can see the creativity in play.  My family is picky though, and when people don't eat what you cook it can make you not want to cook.  Still, I can pull off cooking ONE day a week, and maybe at a later point in time I'll add Saturday to my cooking days.

I'm still managing to workout about five to six days per week.  This weekend Taekwondo is closed for Easter,though, and I wasn't able to go last night so I won't be able to fit in my five day workout.  Oh well, I think I'm doing a good job, and I just really need to try not to be a couch potato at home.  I read an article recently about how sitting more than 11 hours a day can be super dangerous and lead to premature death.  I don't want that to happen, so I'm going to make more of an effort to be up when I'm at home, since I sit most of my 8 hours a day at work. 

That's it for my crazy goal post, this week.  Oh and DO taxes.  Hubby's going to help with that, since he's working from home.  PROCRASTINATION = STUPID.

Insomnia

It's 2:43 AM.  Where should I be?  Sleeping. 

I don't usually suffer from insomnia.  According to NIH, almost 40% of women suffer from insomnia and this tends to increase with age.  That said, I don't usually have a problem with sleep.  After my long, chaotic days I usually fall into bed and am asleep within minutes.  I tend to sleep and dream throughout the night, wake up and feel refreshed until at least 2 or 3 PM when I usually start to feel tired again. 

Tonight, I was awakened by a seven year old boy who crawled into my bed to curl up.  Hubby, so nicely, planted him back where he belonged.  Then, my three year old came down the stairs.  Instead of walking right to our room, he always stands by the stairs crying as loud as he can until someone comes to retrieve him.  I've told him several times just to come to our room.  I always worry that he will wake someone else up!  He is still snuggled in bed next to Daddy, but the pure act of getting out of bed completely woke me up and had my mind spinning.  After laying in the bed for about an hour, I just gave up and decided to blog.

My problem is that I think too much.  After Son #2 snuggled in bed with us, my mind was awake even though my body craved more sleep.  The wheels started turning.  I began to think all about what I had to do today, work issues, homework for Son #1 that did not get done last night, and started trying to solve the world's problems (and my own).  I started focusing on monumental issues in my life.  Whose mind can rest with all of that running through it?  Sometimes, I wish I could turn it off.  Still myself. Still my mind.  I've never been good at that.

In college, I took two yoga classes my senior year.  Yeah, I know, tough subject matter!  I had such a hard time with the meditation.  The professors would always say things like, "If thoughts enter your mind, just let them go.  They are like seeds in the wind."  I could never do that.  The thoughts would come, and they would balloon and sit there, and I would think about everything.  Analyze everything.  Worry about everything.  I come from a family of thinkers. 

Who knows how to fix this?  I sometimes like that I think.  I like that I look at aspects of my life and view how they will affect me.  I hate that I get caught up on the past, or caught up with things I can't change.  I think I am changing for the better now, though.  I'm realizing my faults, and I'm addressing them. 

I seek some comfort in the serenity prayer:

                                    God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

                                    Courage to change the things I can,

                                    And wisdom to know the difference.

Even though I am not so religious, this prayer gives me peace.  Learning how to let go of the things you cannot change is not always easy, but it is a must in order to live life fully.  Being a control freak, this is especially hard for me.  (I come by that honestly too, thanks Mom and Dad!) 

And now with no further words of wisdom, I'm about to crawl into bed and try to close my eyes for a few more hours before another Fun Friday begins.