Chrono-Atypical

While deleting blank posts, I accidentally deleted this post, which most of you have already read, so please disregard. I am sorry for deleting your lovely comments - I spent several minutes swearing at myself and being devastated before I found a way to retrieve the actual post.

 I keep jotting down ideas in my Drafts post for blogging and then when I sit down to blog I still feel all disconnected and paralyzed. 

I think my next few posts will be about things that I feel embarrassed about. I don't know why, I just have a few things I want to write about that are connected to things I don't love about myself but I still want to write about them. Also, I just put in my two cents on Suzanne's blog about being bloggishly vulnerable, so might as well put my money where my big fat mouth is. 

So I have sleep issues. I am what I finally know is called a 'late chronotype', which means I prefer to go to sleep later and get up later and I feel most alert in the evening. 

For most of my life, I was stuck in the normal pattern of Western capitalism which meant being a late chronotype sucked super hard. I don't remember how it was getting up for school in elementary, but in high school it was agonizing - I could never get to sleep early enough for how early I had to get up to catch the bus, which was even more obnoxiously early than the school start time because I lived in a town and the high school was in the city. I would sometimes get up and shower and then crawl back into bed for ten more minutes because being awake hurt so much. If we got up at five a.m. to leave on a long driving trip, which my parents liked to do, I would often throw up within the first hour, whereupon someone would always make the 'you really aren't a morning person', haha, laugh it up, fuck off.

Working nine to five (audio publisher) wasn't great, although who can tell if it was the early mornings or the psychotic Irishman who owned the place and regularly threw stuff and had wrestling fights with two of his eight kids who worked there. Then I worked in a couple of bookstores, which was better, because the hours were all over the place and not usually at the butt-crack of dawn, but I also have really bad feet, so then I was less sleepy but in pain all the time (yeah, somebody buggered up the factory settings good and proper on this body). Then I had kids, which was a whole different kind of clusterfuck from a sleep point of view. 

We managed. I would sometimes half-sleep for a couple of hours in the morning while one or two kids climbed on me and babbled at me and maybe watched some Sagwa or Peep on the bedroom tv. I would sometimes nap when a kid napped, although I was stupidly bad at napping also. 

The kids were around eight and ten when I was finally diagnosed with probably adolescent-onset severe sleep apnea because of tiny airways (seriously, asleep at the switch, someone was). This helped a little, but it was still hard. My husband did a lot of bus stop or school drop-offs, which was super guilt-inducing since I was a stay-at-home mom (although I did do all the late night sick-kid vigils). 

And here we are today. The CPAP has helped, but not to the miraculous extent that some people seem to find. I still have trouble falling asleep before 2 a.m. I still have trouble waking up if I don't have to.

I only have one early work morning. I actually don't mind it, because when I'm forced to be out in the world in the morning it's kind of nice. My other work shifts start late morning, and the days I don't have work either I make an appointment that means I can't sleep late, or I sleep late. I always tell myself I won't, I set my alarm for early, I have the very best of intentions. Doesn't work.

So today I slept late. I dragged myself upright finally, petted Lucy's groggy head (she is more than happy to cuddle in for the duration). I looked at the sun and thought I should take Lucy for a walk and do yoga. Then I thought of all the other stuff I have to do, both fairly urgent (cook stuff to freeze and take down to Eve this weekend, bake biscuits for my sister's house this weekend, do my Covid-study blood collection thing) and less so, but still nagging at me (write a blog post, clean out my overstuffed bra drawer), and thought maybe I should skip yoga and walk Lucy later after more stuff is done.

Then I realized I'm doing that thing where I'm punishing myself for not behaving according to some kind of code that I always imagine I'm supposed to be adhering too - I mean, my kids have turned out fine - good, even! -- to all outward appearances (okay, the younger one has massive anxiety and gets a lot of rashes and can't digest cheese, but that's not because I didn't get up early - wait, it's NOT, RIGHT?) I'm holding down a job half a job a third of a job. I cook (sometimes). I drive my parents to medical appointments, even when my mom has to fast, and friends, that is not a small thing. Why do I feel like sleeping later than most of my friends is on par with drop-kicking babies or leaving your grocery cart in the middle of the aisle? 

Ah, spring

Walking Lucy in the sun is nicer than walking her later. The stuff can easily be cooked later, in the EVENING, when I'm more alert (although given my scale of alertness these days, more alert isn't saying a whole lot)  If I do yoga, it will hurt my back less to be on my feet cooking and baking. And isn't tending to my stupid made-by-a-human-plant-line-worker-high-off-his-tits-on-bath-salts body more important than all the other stuff? Or at least AS important? 

Okay, this is a little more boring than I meant it to be, but whatever, I finished it. Onwards to Lemongrass Chicken and buttermilk biscuits. The bra drawer will have to wait.