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.
