i am tired. tired to the cellular level. maybe it’s understandable, given the whirlwind life i’ve lived the past 4-5 weeks, maybe it is allergy-related, maybe the cold weather is bringing out the hibernator in me. i don’t know the reason, and honestly, i’m much too tired to spend energy on the why of it all, though i sure would like to know.
it started thursday afternoon when i got back home. i made the two trips to unload the car, dropping the bags just inside the door then collapsing on the sofa. i can’t even add the number of hours i’ve slept since them, i tell my friend, angela who urges me to just fall into it.
this morning i mustered the energy to shower and wash my hair. and while i was moving, i stripped the beds and got the laundry going thinking productivity might spur me on to energy. you know, the ole’ energy begets energy theory.
but i don’t know.
i am loathe to mention this publicly for fear women will look over their glasses, cluck their tongues, and urge me to get a prescription to rid me of the obvious depression.
which i don’t think it is.
my throat is a wee bit scratchy, so i use the excuse that if i don’t rest, i’ll get sick. i sleep while my husband is at work, and i feel so darn guilty sleeping during the day while he’s up and out early, going to a job he doesn’t exactly adore. he has to be tired, too, i think, so what makes me so special that i can flop and nap at will?
then a commercial comes on (i keep the television on to help me tell time) that sparks me to wonder if it’s easier/less tiring to just follow than to structure and live into your own life? is the path of least resistance the easiest? is it easier to have a label so you and everybody else knows what you do? is it easier to have a schedule to follow instead of having to assign and fill your own time? is it easier to have an office outside the home and structure of an office outside the home than to arrange your own life pieces?
i like the front end of projects – i know that about myself – so yesterday morning i gathered flower petals and wrapped and stuck, and it was fun . . . but tiring. i persevered, though, sticking to the the ole’ familiar behave-as-though script, but honestly, that’s wearing mighty thin about now, too.
i am who i am.
and that’s all i want to be.
but i declare it takes a lot of energy just to figure out who that is.
especially when i’m interested in so many things that may or may not intersect and overlap. i love cloth and writing, improv and laughter. i love telling stories – in fact, i have a brand new prop and two stories in the ready-to-tell stage . . . but i’m too tired to muster.
i like dancing and reading, but both seem to require a near insurmountable level of energy right now.
and i can’t really find anything that interests me.
okay, that’s not true. but i want to interest me. i want to be doing something that interests me instead of reading about what other women are doing that interests me. truth? i want both.
maybe the floundering is wearing me out.
maybe i’m just simply exhausted and feeding that exhaustion by falling into the pressure i put on myself to justify, to logically explain what is simply exhaustion.
maybe i just need to take angela’s advice (which is, coincidentally, the same advice i offer other women but am loathe to offer myself) and listen to my body’s wisdom, remembering that wisdom doesn’t need explanation. wisdom doesn’t speak the language of logic or tit-for-tat. i want – i desperately want – to be one of the women who leads us back into the realm of wisdom and embodiment, so why don’t i start right now by taking a nap without further scrutiny, apology, or question mark.
Honey, if you’ve got time to sleep, then have a nap! In your bed, on the couch, in a lounge chair, in a hammock, on a towel in the grass (well, maybe not — but I’m a bug-o-phobe) — anywhere. Sleep is delicious.
no nap on the grass – that’s something we share – but yes, 2 naps (so far) today. xo
sometimes it is just your body telling you what it needs, and you should listen. sometimes,, like you and me, we try to do too much ’cause we know we can, but then it catches up with us.
and also, honestly, allergies can make you feel this way, I finally had to go and get shots, I felt like I was sick with a permanent cold all the time, tired, achy, yucky.
Listen to your body…it will tell you what it needs.
Thanks, Sugar. That’s what I tell other women ’cause I know it to be true. But I don’t tell/allow the same of myself. The good news is that today I’ve had a smidgeon more energy than I’ve had since last Thursday. Progress????
Thanks for the mentions–but I think I’m just giving back to you advice you’ve given to me. xo
well, that’s what friends do: hold mirrors for and to each other. so glad i have you in my life. xo
well it seems i woke to the feisty just a few days before you did. but it’s not a going-back-to kind of re-invigoration – no. it’s an enough-is-enough proposition. can appreciate why you Just Said No to pills to fix what isn’t actually broken but, in my case, making the simple switch to an old-lady formula of multi-vitamin has been damn near miraculous. if i can say that after just one week who KNOWS what sort of mountains I’ll have absolutely no interest in moving as time builds upon itself …
mine isn’t a hopping-up-and-down feistiness either. i like the way you said it an “enough-is-enough proposition”. yes, exactly what i’m feeling. and as always, you make me laugh – in this case with “who knows what mountains i’ll have absolutely no interest in moving” . . .
Definitely take Angela’s advice. All this business/busyness we Americans worship is overrated. You know those people who say things like “I only got 4 hours of sleep last night” like it’s some badge of honor? At the end, they don’t get an award. They just get more dark circles under their eyes. Life’s too short not to rest when your body needs it. I for one love my sleep. 🙂
You make me laugh . . . and nod my head in absolute agreement. Black circles and not a badge in sight. xo