Checking out the night shift

Tonight I'm going to try something I probably should have tried a while ago.

I'm going to listen to my body.

It's served me well me in the past, I don't know why I didn't think of it before.

It took me by my shoulders and shook me awake when it was time to detox from years of opiate prescriptions, and gave me the strength to do it.

It told me to get my ass to a doctor about some fluke scary dizzy spells that stopped the second I got my mammogram script in hand.

It's really been through a lot for me.

But lately, I stopped listening.

Until today.

I have not been able to sleep. Like forever. But generally I find different things that help for a while, and I have to alternate through different "therapies" to assist me in obtaining a 70 average FitBit Sleep Score.

Basically, I do sleep. I'm just not very good at it, nor can I do it for extended periods of time without a break.

Lately, my "therapies" haven't been helping. Nothing. Not individually, not combined together. Nothing is working.

I decided to check out this FitBit sleep technology a little bit more and realized just how many nights over the past month I wasn't falling asleep until 3am ish. Five hours each night I've been lying in my bed trying to sleep. Checking email. Playing a video game. Facebook. Toss and turn. Play with kitty. Smoke a bowl. Eat a piece of cheese. Smoke a bowl. Toss and turn. More cheese. Another bowl.

Over and over. More nights than not.

I'm giving up.

Tonight, instead of crawling into my bed and staring at the crystal moon hanging from my ceiling, and seeing how many levels of Matchington Manor I can squeeze in, I'm settling in for a night at my desk. The Aldi glass of blackberry Merlot and bowl of mini chocolate chip muffins, my sustenance for the evening, flicker in the candlelight which helps me see while my husband snores across the room sound asleep in bed. My favorite Pandora station playing in the background to cover the noise.

Tonight, instead of wasting my time, I will listen to my body and give my mind the activity it has decided to crave at odd hours of the night. I will get this blog written up fast, post it, share it, and then head back outside to smoke another bowl before buckling down for a night of editing on 420: Meditations. Edits are due this week so the countdown is on! 


I need to learn that I don't have to get up at 6:00 am anymore to go to work. I can go to work anytime I want to. I can take lunch when I want to. Breaks when I want to. I am not only my own boss, but my own person, with my own unique needs. Apparently, my needs right now involve a 3:00 am bedtime (and possibly a popcorn addiction).

Instead of fighting to get to sleep at 3:00 am, I am planning to go to sleep at 3:00 am, and in the process I believe I will find the quiet of the house at this hour, is precisely what my brain needs, not only to write, but to sort out all the jumbled pieces of life we are all experiencing right now.

I can complain that I'm not getting any sleep and fight with my body about it for 5 hours every night and then wake up feeling like crap and guilty that I "slept in" even though I only got 5 hours of sleep and be completely miserable or, I can change my viewpoint.  There's nothing wrong with me waking up at 10:00 am or even 11:00 am.  I can still go to sleep at 3:00 am AND get plenty of rest. I just have to listen to what my body is telling me, and then give it what it needs. Right now it needs permission to do it's own thing.

I'm good with that.

 

Finding another new "new normal"

I was just falling out of the routine of going to my old Barnes & Noble job, and starting my routine of "Hey, I'm a writer now", when the Corona Virus crap really hit the fan. Like most people, I was thrown for a loop. Unlike many people, I didn't have a job to get up and go to, to get me out of the house and away from hearing what I had known in my heart was coming for months now.

Change happens, no matter if we deny it, or try to stop it. It happens. And while I know that over the next several months, we will see several massive changes -we need to see so much more. Changes that fix our broken system so that it works not only in nationally emergencies, but in every person's private emergencies as well.

That being said, the changes that come about months and years from now are beginning to form now. They are ideas, thoughts and feelings, and they will be nurtured and grown over the coming days.

While those changes are progressing, we need to fall back on some of our good habits to help us feel a bit "normal"

One thing I am going to "renormalize" this week - getting my daily steps in. Stairs will wait another week to break my knees back in first!

I'm also "going back to work" tomorrow. This mess has made focus impossible, so instead I crawled into a few books and made progress on my Goodreads goal.

Tomorrow though I will be working on an article and a blog to be going along with the release of my book.

This release has not gone as planned obviously and I will just have to wait and see what happens with the tour. I imagine I will have to reschedule several book signings, but for now, just sitting back and letting nature take her course while I hide out in confinement.

I have not had contact with anyone but one friend who came by before Shelter in Place went into effect and my family for 12 days now. I did leave the house, but only to pick up and drop off the kids. I did not leave the car.

If my son goes back to work, I will have to run him back and forth, and hope he doesn't get exposed. At least having him home, I know how much the risk is cut down.

Since I won't be doing the launch party the way I had planned, I do have items I had planned to use as prizes that I will be giving out. I have several assignments to complete over the next few months, so as an incentive, each time I finish a project, I will do a give-away. That means tomorrow, I will go ahead and get back to work, and push to get something accomplished.

Feel free to send reminders that you are waiting. In other words, go ahead, bug me that free stuff would be great right about now, and I will work even faster!

How are you finding your way into your new normal?

Learning to walk again

Using cannabis has had many side effects for me.

Learning how to walk again has been one of the most unexpected.

For years, my aching fusing back was tight. A tight back, led to a tight pelvis, which then locked up my hip joints as well. Walking was difficult. It was stiff and confined. My body couldn't fully move the way it was designed to move, and so walking was also not being done the way my body was designed to do it.

When our bodies aren't moving the way they are designed too, they end up with premature wear and tear in unsuspecting places, which then leads to more issues involving more stiffness and pain, which leads to more damage again. Compensation pain can be worse than the original pain. It's a vicious cycle.

But cannabis has helped me to break it.
 

My body had been so stiff for so long, I had completely changed the way I walked. Even after I started finding relief from pain, it took a while for me to realize that by not changing my damaging gait, I was still doing damage. I just wasn't feeling it the way I had been because the cannabis took care of the pain.  I needed to break the entire cycle.

We have joints. They are made to move and swivel. Not using these joints causes inflammation and pain just about as easy as over use does.

My joints weren't moving and I needed to change that.

There's an episode of the old TV show Alice, where Flo instructs Vera she has to "move like the waves in the ocean" in order to put her womanly wiles to use and attract a man. She needed to put some twitch in her step. Move her hips and derriere.

That's literally what I needed to do.

Again, cannabis lent me her hand by helping me to loosen up, both physically and mentally. Accompanied by either Bollywood or Bellydance music, my hips have started moving again. I can feel the fusions on my spine give as my body is able to move in ways it hasn't moved in years.

I can twist.

I can shimmy.

I can bend over and touch my toes.

And when I do, I can feel my joints thanking me for finding them and releasing them from their prison.



I rather doubt when the writers of Alice gave Flo this line, they saw it as anything more than Flo teaching Vera to be sexy, and may not have seen the truth to their words. Perhaps they did, but considering the era, I would be surprised.

Why does "moving like the waves of the ocean" work? Why does it loosen up ligaments and lubrication joints?

Simply because it is natural. We are designed to move like the ocean. We are 60% water. More water than any other matter. We are meant to flow. Not be rigid and stiff.

I have to remind myself when I walk of those words from Flo. They have become my reminder, my mantra.

"Move like the waves in the ocean."

No, it hasn't fully cured me, but it has helped tremendously, and that is far better than what I was.

Rise and Shine

I suck at getting out of the bed in the morning. 

When I was getting up and going to work in the morning, I did it. But now, that I don’t have to leave the house, don’t have the commitment nor the responsibility to be “there” for others, getting up hasn’t been near as easy. 

It doesn’t help that my sleep cycle has been completely out of whack either. 

I knew I needed to work on changing things: getting to sleep before 3 am, waking up motivated and staying that way, getting myself on a schedule again. 

When the email from my acupuncturist’s (Janine) office popped up in my inbox promoting a webinar on setting a morning routine, I thought it must be kismet. I immediately responded attending.

I had to wonder if it was somehow my fault when the appointed time of the webinar came and passed and no webinar. Technical issues had prevented it from happening. 

Not one to give up, Janine quickly emailed out a Power Point presentation for all of us who had registered. 

I eagerly opened it up and read through her ideas. 

Some I had tried before, but some I had not. 

I had been making lists for myself, something I had done years ago, but I was finding a difficult time completing them as of late. One of Janine’s tips was about lists, so I decided to keep that for sure, and commit myself to working on checking each item off. I added a couple different things to my planned morning routine and went to bed eager to start the next morning. I knew I could do this; I’ve done it before with no problem, and not even 6 months ago! 

I spent the next 6 hours tossing, turning, and attempting to shut off my brain. 

I’ve always been an insomniac, but lately, if I managed to fall asleep before 2 am, I would consider it a win. 

I spend most nights in a pretty typical routine. I take sleep supplements. I smoke weed. I have a special “night night time” play list complete with delta wave music. I smoke more weed. I go to the bathroom. I’m up so might as well try more weed. I start getting desperate for sleep as I watch the white numbers on the Alexa Show click closer and closer to morning. Of course, this whole time, the hubs is sound asleep next to me, Vader mask on and still snoring. I vape some weed. Eventually, usually between 2 am and 4 am, I fall asleep. 

This particularly night, I fell asleep around 3:30. I know because – Fitbit. I had planned to be up at 6:30 to start my new morning routine. Besides, three hours wasn’t much less than my average four.

Only I didn’t get three hours, I got an hour and a half, because at 5 am the hubs called, and his car had broken down. Long story short, by the time I got back home, it was after 9 am, I was exhausted, and the rest of my day was shot.

Ya think I would be able to fall asleep pretty easy after that. 

Nope.

That night, I repeated my routine. 

This time, at 1:00 am in the morning, the feral cat I had been helping out, showed up in a panic. I got him inside and settled into his room for the night. He was injured, and I decided it was time, whether he liked it or not, he was going to the vet the next day. 

Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep.  

I was stressed out because I knew his tail had been bit and I was concerned at what the outcome would be. The next day and $800 later, I was the proud owner of a feral cat under rabies observation for the next ten days. 

This sleep and schedule thing weren’t working out quite like I had been hoping.  I would make my list, set my plans up, crawl into bed, and still I couldn’t sleep. When I would make in the morning, something would go wrong from sleeping through my alarm, to sick grandkids, to the passing of a family member.  

My two weeks attempt at setting a morning routine had resulted in zero days of completing my planned routine. At this point, I really don’t know if a morning routine is the thing for me or not. But I decided, maybe I needed to start broader. So, I’m starting with a weekly routine instead. If I can manage to start getting certain tasks done on certain days, at least I have narrowed it down a bit and given myself a win instead of constant losses.

I’m not lowering my sights, but I am giving myself a step up instead of going for the full leap. I’m not in a race, I have no timed finish line. Maybe it will take a few more months for me to figure out a set morning routine, or maybe, I never will. But for right now, trying to set a routine as been far more counter-productive than if I had left well enough alone. 

Sometimes what we want to do, may not be what the cards have in store for us. Now when I can’t sleep, instead of lying in my bed staring at the ceiling or playing a game on my phone I either pick up a book and read or get out of bed and write. 

I’m still not sleeping, but at least I’m finally getting something done.

Fighting the pain with cannabis infused oil

Now that I am adjusting to life as a writer instead of life as a bookseller, I am also focusing more on getting back into better shape. I know the effects sitting at a desk has on my body, and I must consciously and consistently work to reverse the damage it does. 

My preferred method of exercise? Dancing around my house. Sometimes I use Misty Tripoli’s Body Groove online videos (love it!), other times one of my multitude of different themed playlists I have created for my daily dance-a-thons.

Occasionally several rounds of Beat Saber get tossed in particularly when my arms need a workout, or it’s game night, or I’m high and my son is playing it already (because I have no clue how to set it up on my own even though he has showed me a few times), or…well ok, I like the game.  

Fun and energizing, yet these activities also leave my almost 50-year-old body sore and stiff.  And with the multitude of inflammatory and auto-immune issues I have, it leads to a lot of pain. 

While I can take a few hits to ward off the immediate pain, I quickly learned I needed to find something that would give me more long-term relief. After lying still all night, the next morning would be awful. It could take hours for my body to begin functioning close to normal again. I would have to medicate in the morning just to be able to get out of bed on my own because I was so stiff, I couldn’t move. 

My acupuncturists had recommended Oil of Ojas (an incredible mix of essential oils from the Dominican Republic) to me years ago, and while it helped some, it took a while and still did not give me complete relief.

I decided to try mixing it up into my own recipe by combining it will cannabis infused jojoba oil.

To make the infused oil, I first use my Ardent Nova to decarboxylate my cannabis. After that, it goes into my Magic Butter machine to infuse the jojoba oil. Finally, I mix the cannabis oil and Oil of Ojas in a 50/50 mix. At night, before I crawl into bed, I use the mixture on my arms and legs. This mixture keeps my joints and muscles from stiffening up overnight, so when I wake up in the morning, I am ready to go again. 

There are many ways of using cannabis, consuming is only one of them. THC and CBD both can have extremely beneficial effects when used topically as well.

So far, this mix has completely worked for me in situations I know would have left me basically incapacitated for the day, if not for several days. It has been a goddess send, and now I know I can push myself harder and not have to worry about feeling the pain the next day. It has made it so I can get in daily workouts instead of having to recover for days in between. This has been a huge boost to my weekly # of steps and active minutes. Instead of a couple of days a week, now I can get up and go at any time of the day, every day. 

Which is good, because after sitting in my desk chair for hours on end (and with edits starting – I will be doing a lot of sitting), I need to be able to get up and move, not to just shake out my body, but to shake out my mind.

Allow me to introduce myself. Again.

                In my high school, there was a staircase that led down into an odd underbelly of the school. These were underground classrooms with no windows, low ceilings, and the first few times I prepared to enter those rooms, my claustrophobia kicked in as soon as I opened the stairwell door. 

                But those rooms became a place I loved. A haven. A refuge. 

                They were where I went for my overabundance of English credits in the form of Creative Writing, Journalism, and Publications. It was where we birthed the yearbook and put the newspaper to bed each month. 

                It was where I found the words to express myself through poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, and eventually as the Editor-in-Chief of the school paper. It was where I wrote about my beloved hockey team and homecoming, and the lack of response by the police to a broken-down car full of teens – until curfew hit.

It was where I created my first out of the house office after my friend/sidekick/assistant and I faked press badges/passes, picked a lock, and moved into the little-known hidden room. School funded landline and all. No one knew we were there.

It was where we would hide out during lunch, study hall, and any other class we felt like skipping for the day. I spent at least 20 hours a week in there for 2 years.

                It was where I learned to put the feelings in my heart into words from my head onto the paper. It was where I learned I mothered others because I had missed out being mothered by my own due to her early death.

                It was where I mourned both loves and lives lost.

                It was where I met three incredible women – Sara, Mary, and Angie. Women that became such role models to me, I named one of my children after one of them. 

                It was where I learned women had a power all their own. One that may often be hidden, but none-the-less, it’s always there.  Our job is to dig inside, pull it out of the depths, and dust it off for everyone to see. We included.

                It was where I learned I had an attitude and a voice, and I knew how to use them.

                It was where I became the person, I was for many, many, many years.

                But then, life happened, and she was gone. I was gone.

                It’s time to descend those familiar stairs again. 

                The wave of claustrophobia doesn’t hit anymore. It ended when those rooms became my home.

                Three rooms which made up so many hours of my life, became my life. 

                It doesn’t matter which door I choose to open. While each room offers a different view, each became intertwined with the others. Opening one, opens all. 

                And behind each one, I stand.

                But now, I’m 30 plus years wiser.

                The Queen is back ya’ll. 

                Better than ever.