On sleep, or lack thereof

It's amazing what a difference a good night's sleep makes. I mean, not really. It's not amazing at all. It's actually pretty obvious. Everyone knows sleep is good. Duh. Long-time readers of this blog (or even not-so-long-time readers) might remember that I often have trouble sleeping, sometimes going through long stretches of time without getting a good night's sleep, which sucks and also double sucks because when I don't sleep, it's all I want to talk about and THAT IS SUPER BORING. But boring enough to put me to sleep? No.

Sometimes my sleep trouble is Max's fault, for sneaking onto our bed while we're asleep and then trying to curl up on my pillow. Sometimes it's Phoebe's fault, because it seems like 3am is her favorite vomiting time and, you guys, vomiting time is LOUD. Sometimes it's Joe's fault (IT SO IS) for snoring or moving too much or accidentally elbowing me in the head or, really, for just being asleep when I'm not asleep HOW RUDE NO FAIR.

But most of the time, it's no one's fault but my own because I can't turn my brain off. I can't make myself relax because you know what the least relaxing thing in the world is? Trying to tell yourself to relax. Especially if you're already worried that you're not going to get enough sleep. It's easy to tell yourself in the bright light of day that all you need to do is close your eyes, focus on your breathing, and you'll relax, but when it's nighttime and you're stressed about work the next day and you're brain-yelling at yourself to RELAX BREATHE IN COUNT TO FOUR BREATHE OUT COUNT TO FOUR RELAX RELAX RELAX...you're never going to fall asleep. SORRY BUT YOU'RE NOT.



Sunday was one of those nights for me. I had no good reason to not be able to fall asleep. If I fell asleep at all, I woke up an hour later, hoping that I could just fall right back to sleep but NO. I finally fell into a nice sleep around 5:30, only to wake up an hour later with the alarm, wanting to cry and sink back into bed instead of facing the day.

What do you guys do if you can't sleep? Do you get up and do stuff? Or, like me, do you just lie there, doing sad math until your alarm goes off? You know, like this: "OK, if I fall to sleep now, I can still get five hours of sleep...I can live on that. It's only one day, and then I can come straight home after work and take a nap...oh, shit...OK, if I fall to sleep NOW, I can get four hours of sleep. People live on that all the time. It's fine. Doctors don't sleep for like 48 hours straight and they operate on people so I can definitely sit at a desk all day on four hours of sleep. It's fine. OH SHIT THREE HOURS OF SLEEP I MIGHT AS WELL JUST GIVE UP AND FREAK OUT FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT."

And so on.

There's got to be a better way to use this sleepless time. Should I get up and do something productive? Try to read a book? Reading in bed always makes me sleepy. Should I just give up and get up at 3am to work out or something? Or will that just lead to me falling asleep on the way to work? HELP ME, INTERNET, YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE. Because this was me when I got home from work yesterday:



and that is unacceptable.

Day One: Insanity sets in

Oh yawn, you guys. Seriously, YAWN. I am about to get super whiny all over the place, so please bear with me. Actually, no, it's probably not that whiny. I'm too tired to be very whiny. OK, that was whiny. Whiny is starting to sound weird because I've said it so many times. Whiny, whiny, whiny. Anyway.

I was so unhealthy yesterday, so very very unhealthy, food-wise, because yesterday was, as I decided to call it, My Last Hurrah. So, of course, I was going to eat as much junk food as possible. I figured, WHY NOT, since today started the healthy-eating/exercising/grocery-going part of my Year Goals. All the junk food was a mistake, however, because it made my tummy all sorts of hurty. Plus, I'm partially blaming all the junk food for not being able to sleep last night. There were other reasons, though. I mean, I hadn't had to get up for work in like twelve days, so I was worried about not getting enough sleep and being all tired today. That's a vicious cycle, yeah? You're lying there in bed, thinking about how you have to be up in [blank] hours, and the more you worry about not getting enough sleep, the harder it is to FALL asleep and before you know it, it's four in the morning and you wonder if you should just get up because you were planning on getting up at five anyway.

Because, YEAH, I got up at five in the morning today. THAT IS SO EARLY. Phoebe was SUPER excited, because I'd gotten up that early to exercise before work and she loves when I exercise in the living room because she thinks I'm a cat jungle gym. Whenever I do pilates or yoga or whatever, she's all climbing over my prone body and getting smacked by flying limbs and mrorwing at me for not petting her because didn't you know? That's what I'm there for. To pet her and pick up her poops and feed her and get her high on kitty pot.

I know the day is only half over, but I'm counting it as a success as far as my goals go. After all, I got up at five, exercised, have eaten nothing but the healthiest of foods so far, and am planning on going to the grocery after work, then cooking a healthy dinner. Win win win! Yeah, it's only been one day, but whatever, I know I can do it because this one time? (at band camp?) I lost a bajillion (read: 50) pounds and I didn't even exercise, I just ate the tiny amounts of food that Weight Watchers claims are REAL SERVINGS because Weight Watchers is evil. It's true. They're totally in cahoots with The Mayor and Ryan the Temp and Sue Sylvester, I SWEAR.

oh, what a beautiful morning

Good morning, Internets!

Four years ago, I woke up and immediately wanted to go back to sleep for four more years. This morning I'm exhausted from staying up to watch Obama speak and ALSO I was too excited to go to sleep, but I'm ecstatic. I've never voted for a winning president before. It feels nice.

As I was getting ready, I turned on CNN, just in cases, and poked my head out of my bedroom to talk to Heidi.

Me: Psst!
Heidi: Yeeees?
Me: Barack Obama still won.
Heidi: Oh good, I didn't dream it.
Me: I know. I turned on the news to make sure it wasn't a beautiful, beautiful dream.

Text messages I received last night:

I'm voting!

I'M SO EXCITED!

I am not joking when I say there is dancing in the streets of DC.

I am crying so hard.

Holey moley!

Whoo!

I think "Whoo!" sums it up nicely. Happy Wednesday.