Updates

For years, I’ve known I should sleep more. I like working out in the morning, so I (try to) get up early. I shake off evening tiredness and procrastinate sleep, because I used to be most productive in those hours after the kids went to bed. Now, they are productive, and I’m generally reading or putzing around online or trying to find a snack that sounds snacky but isn’t four billion calories.

I wouldn’t say I’m productive at night anymore.

When I started taking Lexapro, one of my main side effects is fatigue. Yet, I don’t think that’s the only reason I’m tired. I think part of what I thought was a need for less sleep was my anxiety keeping me awake, keeping my mental and physical motors churning, even while my emotional motor was whirling with a mind of it’s own. (Too many unfinished metaphors. It’s ok. It’s only a blog no one reads except the dust motes in the room with me.)

My age is a whole other post. Dear friends have warned me my inner sleep clock would start to collect all those missed hours at some point. I didn’t want to believe anyone who told me that. I don’t want to believe I can’t control the cortisol levels in my body without sleep. I like those extra minutes each day.

This Sunday, Abbey returned from an amazing school trip that took her to Boston and New York City before coming home, delivered through the night on a plane that taxied to the gate at 11:45 p.m. By the time we collected luggage (all of the kids had to check because of a lack of space) and dropped off friends, we didn’t roll into our driveway until basically 2:00 a.m. I didn’t fall asleep right away, partially from adrenaline and partially from Diet Coke, but I had to get up in the morning to take Dylan to school — we let her sleep — and to get myself to work.

I dragged the rest of the day, though my Monday workday is only a half day. I tried to nap and couldn’t. Wandered the house like a phantom. Tried again and napped, the twenty minute break leaving me more bleary eyed than revitalized.

I need to sleep more. At night. In my bed.

I’m ready to concede defeat to the idea that I can, indeed, function productively on five hours a sleep (or even six).

I don’t think it’s going to be easy for me to go to bed at 10:00 or 10:30, because the kids are still awake at those hours now. It means Ryan will be the one to do the final, “time to hand over your phone” goodnight hug. I already miss reading or just sitting, wrapped in a blanket, in a quiet house, the darkness surrounding our family and keeping us safe.

It won’t be easy for me, but I have to try. I’m tired of feeling foggy and a little lazy, living many of my hours in a state that isn’t quite powered on but isn’t asleep.

We’ll see how this goes.

I started wearing my mouth guard again last night. (As though I need one more example of why I am the opposite of inspirational…) I went to my six-month dentist appointment and had to have a filling replaced because I grind my teeth, which is something I know but don’t do much about. Thankfully, I guess, they were able to repair it immediately following my cleaning, but I decided to do my best not to further the damage to the filling in the tooth immediately below the repaired one.

I’ve tried this method before. Basically, I hate the mouthguard. I’ve had it fit twice, and they swear it is working exactly how it should work, but it feels kind of like I should be playing football and less like I should be sleeping. I sort of feel like I’m suffocating or choking, which is obviously anxiety and not what’s really happening in my mouth, but it’s not exactly like that feeling makes it easy to fall asleep.

As much as I hate the mouthguard, I hate the idea of cracking my teeth even more, plus I think it’s starting to erode my gums, and why isn’t there just a method that would teach me NOT to grind my teeth in my sleep?

So in went the mouthguard. On went the pink noise, which I should write about a different day, when I’m not so focused on annoyances and more focused on things that might help with annoyances. Sip of water. Try to determine if I swallowed the water around the mouthguard. Go to the bathroom one more time. Turn up the pink noise another notch.

I woke up a couple of times during the night, which isn’t unusual. I check the time each time, try and fail not to calculate how much time I have left before my alarm(s) start chiming.

By the 3:00 a.m. wake up, I felt like the mouthguard had made a successful first time back in the bedtime rotation, and I tossed it onto the nightstand.

We will see if I can make it until 3:30 tonight.

I’m not chill about a lot of things, but I am usually calm about my kids leaving home. Between sleep-away camps and dance intensives in various lengths of time and various levels of supervision and freedom, they’ve both cobbled together experiences that make me feel like they’re tip-toeing their way to independence. That’s the goal, of course, so these boomerang adventures, the ones where they circle back, are helping all of us get more comfortable for when the boomerang flies for a truly long time.

But Dylan is in Washington D.C. on the ubiquitous eighth grade trip, and our house is quiet.

It’s not that he spends his evenings chatting with Ryan and I about his day. We chat, separate, rush places, maybe eat together on good days, play a little cards on better days, and basically cleave together the same routines that take place in millions of houses across the world. Yet even on the days when we barely have conversations, I hear him chatting with his friends while playing video games or get a breakdown of his day while we’re driving in the car. He sends me Tik Tok videos. He (for now) still hugs me goodnight.

Our house is quiet.

For all of the logical understanding about building responsibility and freedom and the idea that I know they’ll be on their own eventually, I cherish the times we’re all sleeping under the same roof. I breathe easier, even on nights when my anxiety is racing about something, anything, everything. Maybe it’s partly because time is creeping up behind me and tapping me on the shoulder more frequently. Two kids taking a PSAT this year, two kids in high school next year — milestone upon milestone that once seemed so far away are slipping from my calendar.

Our house is quiet, and tonight I miss the noise.

One of the things that helps keeps me organized is my commitment to color-coding my planner. I know that might seem like a silly thing, but for years I’ve coded everyone with a color (it’s not always consistent year to year, but it is consistent for A year). That means I can glance at my monthly or weekly calendars and know who’s busy when and who might be able to fit just one more thing into their day.

Lately, my coding is breaking down.

My beloved pencil case is tired, and I started to worry that overstuffing it was leading to an early demise. I pulled out everything but the colors I needed, a couple of highlighters, and a single black gel pen, for when one of my brighter colors just wouldn’t do. Then I got distracted. I like the way the pens wrote, which meant I started using them at work and in my journal, which is something I didn’t do with the calendar pens when there were other pens in the case.

Things got confusing. One ended up on my nightstand. One ended up in the bottom of my belt bag, one in the bottom of my work bag next to the stainless steel straw that I probably need to throw in the dishwasher at this point.

Then I made an appointment and needed to write it down. I won’t lie. In the past, without the correct pen color, I’ve been known to write the appointment on a small post it and add it to the calendar, until I can find the correct pen and code things in the correct way.

This time I simply wrote Dylan’s appointment in my pen color, the one I’d been holding at work when the doctor’s office called me back to confirm the time and location.

The floodgates opened, and I started writing lists in purple (Abbey’s color), when only her activities used to be in purple. My dentist appointment is in red (Dylan’s color), and you can see how once the breakdown starts, there’s not a ton of incentive to put things to right for April, since my quick glances now require reading and not just color sighting.

I realize this is a lot of words about colored pens. I think part of the reason it’s not bothering me the way it used to is because Abbey’s driving now, which means I don’t need to keep such a tight rein on the evening activity color overlap, because I rarely need to be in two places at once or within a tight time frame. Her driving has relaxed our evenings — in a scheduling sense but definitely not an emotional sense.

It’s strange, this lack of reliance on colors to keep my brain organized. It hasn’t affected anything yet or made me late or ruined any plans, but I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The end of an era often surprises me, and I’m not sure I’m ready to let this one go yet.

I hate admitting this, but each January I make calculations about how much weight I could lose by the time we go on spring break. Keep in mind, these calculations come at the end of a holiday season filled with things that hurt my stomach and make me feel sub-par: charcuterie boards and extra desserts, wine and dinner crafted from appetizers. I look forward to the shift toward healthier eating.

Then Dylan’s birthday equals a treat and Abbey’s birthday, and then something else comes up. Suddenly I have three days to lose twenty pounds, which is obviously hyperbole, because it can’t happen. And I shouldn’t even be thinking about it at this point, because it’s obvious my body is going to be my body when we get in the car to meander south to Orange Beach with a group of friends that make me laugh and have good book recommendations and don’t care if you haven’t been able to see my abs since sometime in the 90s.

But today, as I mentally prepared my packing list, I panicked a little. What fits? What doesn’t? What’s a little too tight and should stay at home, because it will definitely feel uncomfortable by the week’s end, when we’ve had happy hours and ice cream trips and all sorts of interruptions to normal eating that even the strongest probiotics can’t battle. I walked aimlessly around Target (everything is meant for people whose abs are ready for their vitamin D) and went to a second store to see if there was anything I could buy with a coupon I received in the mail.

Why do I worry about it so much? Why do I feel so self-conscious when I literally couldn’t care less about my friends’ bodies? It takes up too much of my time and brain space, that’s for sure.

I didn’t buy anything to wear, but I did go to the library and got three books (two I haven’t read, one I have) and loaded my Kindle with more. I tried to be grateful for driving, even though road trips are exhausting, because that means I can pack options, both to wear and to read, without worrying about baggage allowances.

I can write all these words, like I’ve come to terms with it all, but I know I haven’t. One day, with enough effort, I hope I do.