| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
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I don't know what the problem was. I didn't fall asleep until around 5 am. I went to bed at 11, tried all sorts of mental relaxation techniques until around 2. At that point, I got up, did some left over dishes, wrote a letter, drank chamomile tea, watched TV, made my lunch for today, took some valerian tablets, watched more TV, and then made myself lie down at 4:15. I was still awake around 4:45. I slept fitfully until around 8 am -- total sleep: about 2.5 hours. And here I am at work. |
Been working all weekend. Didn't finish. Still working. |
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I don't know what the matter was last night. Usually if I'm anxious or upset about something, I fall asleep easily and then wake up every hour or so....and I cannot stop thinking about whatever the issue is. I wasn't thinking about *anything* last night that would have upset me. And I was tired! I hope I can catch up tonight. The other night I had a strange dream that reminded me of "Bastard Out of Carolina." The dream seemed to take place in the South, in the 1960s or so. David Strathairn was my step-father and was widely considered to be a horrible abusive jerk, but I was his favorite child and he was good to me. One morning, he took me with him to this outdoor farmer's market, and as he was buying things, I wandered over to the nearby cornfield, where there were a bunch of little girls standing around and talking. Some of them were speaking Spanish to each other (with American accents, as if they had learned the language at school). Another little girl wandered toward us from out of the cornfield, and she spoke Spanish with a Latina accent. The following conversation was supposedly in Spanish, but I could understand it (and I don't speak Spanish IRL). Anyway, this Latina girl told us all about angels and the Blessed Mother and her prayers for "the MacDonald," which was my stepfather, apparently. (I think I was unhealthily attached to my stepfather -- I have an image of myself writing his name over and over again later in the dream.) Suddenly, this little tiny girl (~2 years old) comes up, dressed like Our Lady of Guadalupe, and she tears off a religious medal from around her neck and throws it on the ground. She snarls bitterly that "the MacDonald" is a terrible man, and the angels never protected her from him no matter how hard she prayed. She spits on the ground and storms off. (The dream continued, but I don't feel like going into it.) Anyway, the image of this little tiny girl so filled with bitterness and spiritual anger has stayed with me. |
When I saw him this weekend, it was revealed to me that he and his friend Anna are nothing more than friends. She stayed in the spare bedroom when she visited him. He is having a great time being by himself and independent, and he has no desire to have a relationship with anyone. However, I pointed out to him that I knew he wrote her letters all the time, and called her, and mailed expensive birthday presents to her daughter, etc......this sure doesn't sound like just a friendship to me. He insisted that they were friends, though. So all that worrying for nothing. :P |
I haven't been able to remember much of my dreams, other than this weird apartment complex in them, and tons of people around, wherever I went, with no peace and quiet anywhere. I have been sick, though, and haven't been getting proper sleep (not a lack of it, Spunky has taken care of the kids so I could, but not quality sleep at least). Hopefully I will get rid of this virus soon and get back to normal. I am going through yoga withdrawls (skipped it twice this week and once last week) but I don't have the strength to do it yet. Maybe tomorrow. I hate the flu. It pisses me off when my whole life is turned upside down cuz I am sick. I don't have the time to be sick anymore, too much to do. |
I did manage to fall asleep around 1:30. I wonder what's going on. Eri, I hope you feel better soon. |
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i've had sinus infections before but never an ache behind my cheekbones like this. |
I am feeling better today. I ate a little last night and stopped the coffee, and ate again this morning and I am feeling tired and groggy but just a little headache left, that's it. |
I haven't had many colds for awhile. But, this one is the pits. I spent all weekend in bed. And, I feel worse now. I took Tuesday off to go to the docs. But, I just can't afford to take any more time. With all my other health problems I have no leave to take. My sleep has been very bad. I keep waking up from my own wheezing. It sounds horrible. And, feels even worse. |
When I was a teenager I held this belief that I could not function on less than 7 hours of sleep, and on the nights when it looked like I would indeed be getting less than that, I would work myself into a lather of distress, certain that I would be a mess the next day at school. It wasn't until years later when I learned I could function on much less, and learned to stay calm when it looked like I'd be getting, oh, three hours of sleep until it was time to get ready for work. One of my problems tonight is that the crazy woman I spent the day with talked a lot about dying, and the pills she had saved up for when her impending Alzheimers threatens the quality of life, and how she had willed all of her pets to me to take care of after her death. Before I visited her last week, I had not seen her in at least 15 years, and now I'm learning she put me in her will. Or maybe she just said that tonight? She is kind of nuts. Anyway, hearing so much about death death death today is making it hard for me to sleep. I'm terrified of dying, and I'm terrified of all the deaths of the people around me, and the pain of that I will have to bear. It's one thing to hear that someone you loved has died -- an awful, terribly hard thing -- and it is quite another to be there when it happens, to see it. The worst thing about being with my mother when she was dying was the not knowing of how or when it was going to happen, and wishing it would just hurry up and get over with because this prolonged unknowable waiting was agony, but hurrying up and getting over with meant that my mother would be gone. I use such retarded and hyperbolic language all the time that I'm not able to articulate how extreme that agony was. I think of my father, my brother, all my aunts and uncles, eventually my friends dying; thankfully I don't have a husband or children to lengthen the list. Now I will have to deal with pets dying, and having to make the decision to put them down. It's kinda stupid and irrational to be kept awake by the dread of future grief, but it's 12:20 and here we are. |
but maybe I've just gotten tired of giving a shit. Or maybe, like a generational curse, the fear has leapt from me to my daughter. A few weeks ago as she was going to sleep we were doing our bedtime ritual of "questions" where she asks me anything and I answer. I got on the subject of the sun and how eventually it will run out of fusion fuel and go out. So she asked, "the sun will die?" And I answer, "yes, the sun will die." She's quiet for a beat, then cried, "that means I'M GONG TO DIE!" and just started bawling. Sometimes my little girl is too smart for her own good. I redirected her despair to laughter with a couple of jokes and a bit of goofiness because, honestly, there's no good answer to that fear at her age. But I must admit, having spawn has tamped down my fear of death. Some part of me will live on after I die. It is a singular contradictory selfishness/selflessness of parenthood: you're giving someone life so that your own life can, in some way, go on. |
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I admit, with my depression sometimes I start to think of ways I could kill myself and end the pain. Then I realize it's just the disease. But I really hate pain. Physical or mental or emotional. I have had enough. I would just prefer to go peacefully in my sleep. God, I hope you heard that one. Simply said I would prefer heart failure in my sleep. Anytime is fine with me. |
My sleep cycle is totally out of whack. Sometimes I can sleep for up to twenty hours. At other times I'm up for more than twenty four with no sleep. Usually I'm up all night and sleep most of the day. My therapist and my wife are both after me to "go to bed at a decent hour. And, get up at a normal time." I don't think I've ever really thrived at "normal" hours. It's night time when I really feel, not lately obviously, alive. If I'm out walking or jogging, I did that in the summers when in high school, in the wee hours I just want to yell "children of the night come out and play". I know that is really weird. But, I don't care. |