Tag: sleep

Idle Thoughts

Published on by Grace15 Comments

4:20am – I’ve been awake since 1:30a and up and about since 2:30-ish. Took care of some paperwork, had breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee. I would kill for a cigarette but we’ve quit again; I don’t really see the point, not at our age – like I told my doctor recently, “I’m 76 and I wasn’t planning on living forever.”

My entire left side is crap, common wisdom would suggest it should be my right side since I am right-handed and therefore my right side is considered my dominant side. But Nooo – not me. Everything that goes wrong in/on my body does so on my left side.  My left shoulder hurts, my left arm and elbow and wrist joint hurt, my left hip and my lower back, on the left side hurts…

I’m back sharing a bed and bedroom with my husband and the expensive mattress we bought 2 years ago is one of the causes of my aches – the mattress suits him and his comfort – it is hard as a block of concrete. I prefer a hybrid medium firm with the top layer being gel foam – Ahh, such a nice comfy mattress. Husband prefers a block of concrete covered with something just a tiny bit soft.

You know what’s the interesting thing – about a year and a half ago I began sleeping in my ‘office’ which also functioned as a guest room and had a single bed in it.  Mostly because of my husband’s snoring and other assorted sleep noises – I finally decided the only chance I had of getting a decent night’s sleep was to sleep in another room – with the door closed. They can hear my husband snore and snort in Cleveland!  Plus the new mattress was killing me.

Here’s the interesting thing – the night my husband had his seizure I had decided to sleep in the the master bedroom with him. Why? He hadn’t been feeling well and something just nagged at me so THAT night I decided,just for that night, to stay close.  If I hadn’t made that decision I would have been sleeping in another room with the door closed, as I usually did,  and never heard him; never known he had a seizure; never even checked on him till hours later when I got up for the day.

If I hadn’t changed my sleeping habits that one night I wonder what my situation would be today? That will always nag at me just a teeny tiny bit – I could be free right now – maybe.

Despite my crazy sleep schedule I am finally sleeping a bit more – I think I have no choice I’ve been falling asleep literally standing up – so I’m feeling a bit more rested. I’m still  brain dead by mid-afternoon but everyday I seem to have a bit more energy. Yes, I still walk into rooms intent on doing something and then can’t remember what – And no that is NOT a usual thing for me – a lot of me is falling apart but my brain is still in quite good shape. Physical fatigue is getting under control but mental fatigue is still with me. I’m not sure how one alleviates mental fatigue.

It’s now 5:15am and I’m having trouble keeping my eyes open – might be time for a little nap as soon as I get my husband set up in his recliner. He got up about 4:30am – he’s had his meds and his breakfast. He can safely navigate around the apartment now, which has taken a lot of the pressure off me but this morning he’s seems a bit more wobbly, I might just wait until he gets all his stuff moved across the room. Being a man, he thinks he can safely maneuver a trip across the room using a cane, carrying a cup of coffee and a book with only one good hand. Experience has shown that is not going to happen.

I should have gone back to bad when I had the chance, my eyes may be at half staff but my brain is in overdrive…I know that if I go back to bed now I will just flip and flop and by the afternoon I will be stumbling over my own feet and will probably wind up taking a nap, whether I want to or not,  which means when it’s time to go to bed for the night I won’t be sleepy and this crazy sleep cycle will just keep rolling on…

After you've turned off the light, and closed your eyes

Published on by Grace

and settled down to sleep – what are you thinking?

Does that seem an odd question? Do you just close your eyes and !Boom! you’re off to dreamland? Or do you start doing mental gymnastics – jumping around all the things you have to do tomorrow or the things you did did today that are bothering you?

Or do you decide on what you want to dream about – mentally saying “I want to dream about ____”  Someone told me that they count backwards from 100 – I tried that, I lose track and it’s boring and I still don’t fall asleep.

Sometimes I try to sing myself to sleep, in my head singing, not out loud singing. I may start with the Doxology and move on to the Sanctu Kyrie part of Anthem . I’ll sing these over and over in my head. I guess I fall asleep eventually. One way or the other, most of the time, I fall asleep eventually.

If my brain decides I have to relive a variety of embarrassing, painful, uncomfortable incidents from the past, well then, there will be no sleep at all. Sometimes, I’ll just tell myself “Stop that, don’t think about that, think of something else”.

Sometimes I have conversations that could only take place in my mind, never in real life. Or, if some event is happening the next day I will rehearse what I will say and do. The time before sleep is never without thoughts, lots of thoughts, some conscious, some unbidden.

What happens in your head when you put it down to sleep?