I fell asleep on the couch at some point... maybe 10-ish? And woke up at 2, and I'm still up. I tried to get back to sleep, but I just don't feel good. My stomach is roiling (although better now that I had a couple of ginger mints) and my eyes feel cruddy and my brain is going a hundred miles an hour. I could really use some sleep but I think I'm getting to the point (...depression...) where I'm just not doing the right thing.
Example: I had a perfectly good dinner of leftover steak and ratatouille and then some cornbread. I really wasn't hungry at all, but I finished off a bag of potato chips. That sounds horrible but is not as bad as it was yesterday, if only because there were far fewer chips left in the bag today. Then I had some of DD's cheese puffs, just because they were sitting there. Another example: I had my 2 glasses of wine, but then had an elderflower spritz, just because. (I'm beginning to suspect that elderflower liqueur does not agree with me, but it is delicious. I feel like I'm hungover but I don't think I had enough alcohol to cause that!)
It's funny how I mix up emotional feelings and physical feelings sometimes. Like when I've had a physical lump in my throat it felt exactly like wanting to cry. But now I have this feeling like something is squeezing my heart, but it's not a physical feeling at all, it's just how I experience sadness. I swing back and forth between thinking it's good I have so much to do, it keeps me busy, and thinking I'm crazy for trying to do all this - master's class, master's project, teaching almost 200 students - at the same time that I have so much going on in my personal life. DS1 is in college, and DD and DS2 are at a very challenging high school and are pursuing piano at advanced levels. DH wrenched his back a few weeks ago and is still not back to 100%. The pain by my collarbone almost never goes away now -- but doing my neck physical therapy exercises 4x/day finally seems to be giving me some relief from the neck muscle issues.
And overshadowing all that, of course, is Mom in hospice, and my brothers and sisters caring for her, while I am here, useless to them.
Now I'm mad at myself (again) because I've been up for 3 hours and have nothing to show for it. At least my next two days at school are light on instruction, so I should be able to manage on the little sleep I did get.
1 comment:
Personally, I hate it when people give advice when I am having a down moment ("have you thought about using sensors..." comes to mind), but I;m going to stick my neck out and say this: a colleague once told me -- never make life's decisions in the month of February in Wisconsin. He was right. The month messes with your sensibilities. The winter seems never ending, the days are too short. But really, what I want to say is that maybe you should not evaluate the state of the world and your life in it during one of those wakeful periods in the middle of the night. I have many such periods and during them, whatever pain I have, I am convinced is the beginning (or more likely a later stage) of some terrible malady. I think every hour of wakefulness for me is an hour of sadness. I should not project this onto you, but maybe knowing that there are others who have these BIZARRE aches and intense pains at night will help you feel more confident that maybe it's all going to be okay? It's not that these pains and issues aren't real. Mine are very real. It's just that at night, they seem to portend of an impending end.
Separately, it's good to see you writing these details here. Really truly: you're story is important. So thank you.
Post a Comment