It's a strange new world. For years...decades...my
sleep has been erratic and most days I function on 4-5 hours of sleep, or
less. I just took it for granted that I just didn't need as much sleep
as most people.
Lately, I've been sleeping. I've been
going to sleep when I feel sleepy, rather than forcing myself to stay up and
finish my journal entry (which then wakes me up and starts me doing other
things on the computer), and I've been sleeping a reasonable number of
hours. The other morning I woke up at 10:45!!! I
couldn't believe it. I had been awake for a couple of hours during the
middle of the night, but added together, I had slept 8 hours. That was
unheard of.
I sometimes laugh when I focus on how much
(or little) sleep I had in a night. Gilbert was a terrible insomniac
and obsessed with his inability to sleep. Whenever I saw him...and
sometimes he would call me to check in...the primary topic of conversation
was how little sleep he had the night before. I didn't want to get
like that, but it seemed (seems?) like I'm there already.
I read somewhere recently that a normal
sleep is sleeping for a few hours, being up for a couple of hours and then
going back to sleep. I can't remember who said that but I found it
comforting because that's exactly how I sleep--and am becoming more "normal"
in my hours of sleep.
Which is a round-about way of saying I chose
to sleep last night instead of writing this entry. Walt has just come
in here complaining that he woke up and didn't get his Funny the World
today I told him to wait a few minutes and it would be up. This
is, after all, the day that the entry is date, though I usually write
it the night before.
Yesterday I had my second meeting with
Debbie, my new therapist. I had to confess to her that I had done none
of her suggested things concerning meditation exercises because of the
confusion of the last few weeks. I also expected to have started on
the anti-depressant she wanted me to take, but my primary care physician
said she didn't want to prescribe it until she had seen me, and, since she
has been on vacation until this week, I have not seen her yet.
I thought I had an appointment on Monday and
got myself all emotionally geared up for the scolding I knew I was in for
and dragged myself to Kaiser, only to be told that my appointment was for
Tuesday, not Monday, and Tuesday morning our car was being taken in for
an oil change. So I didn't start the anti-depressant and now I have to
go through the emotional gear-up all over again on Friday.
But I feel like with the start of the new
year, I'm kind of cleaning house and organizing myself. Working with
Debbie I think is going to be very productive. After I've seen Dr.
Akanda, I will be free and clear for another year (whether or not I actually
do all the things she wants me to do).
I am also realizing that I am way past the
time when I should get my glasses replaced. I needed a new
prescription two years ago and just have never gotten around to doing
it...and after struggling to hear a recent show I was reviewing, I know that
I have to bite the bullet and get hearing aids. There is no logical
reason why I haven't done any of these things (and it's one of the things I
am discussing with Debbie...why I put off doing things that would take care
of me)
Also, I have to bite the bullet and call my
computer guru and decide what to do about my computer situation. I
just don't want to hear that it is dead and there is no hope of recovering
the data stored on the hard drive. But I've been working with the
laptop (which also is in serious need of work) and have realized that things
are not quite as bad as I feared. Yes, I have lost massive amounts of data
that I will never get back, but I did a WordPerfect back-up to my external hard drives in 2011, so it's
only the data from the last 3 years that is gone. That in itself is
terrible, but it isn't as catastrophic as I originally feared.
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