The ongoing battle

Well hello, post challenge blog. I waffled between never wanting to see you again and glorious dreams of self-imposed daily writing goals. Once a week sounds about right in the end.

As usual, I'm blowing the way the winds of inspiration are directing me.

Sorry, sorry. It was that or a butterfly analogy. My brain is...special today.

The non-fluttery version is, of course I had a few topics rolling around in my mind but instead I'll go with sleep.

I have all these grand plans for getting stuff done early, getting to bed early, skipping my personal quiet time in the wee hours of darkness after midnight and going with a more productive self earlier in the actual day. Every night around 8 or 9, I'm exhausted enough to go straight to bed, and then by 11ish, I'm wide-the-fuck-awake.

Aside from my own personal lack of respect for bedtime (which is not the same as my deep, enduring love for sleep), my family (as I suspect so many families do) shatters my dreamy aspirations for getting shit done.

Yeah, it's an expletive laden kind of week. I make no apologies. Not that I would anyway. I use swear words the way some people use hot sauce.

Back to my family, I have tried for probably 3 hours to get this post written. Instead, I have handled an anxiety attack over returning a defective device for a new one, a psychiatric hiccup (or 3 by the time I'm done writing), butterflying chicken and pork chops from a grocery trip, lowering our tv bill, ordering passes for my older people for an event, snacks for my older people, a door handle falling off into my hand and just general stuff and things that they bring to me ONLY WHEN I'M BUSY. These requests (or cries) for help are like trying to pull out into rush hour traffic: spaced just far enough apart that you can't get anywhere. Collectively, all of this may have amounted to 45 minutes to an hour total. A blip in the day. And some of it is just requests for supervision, almost like a little kid wanting you to watch what they can do.

I remind myself that I'm lucky to be surrounded by my wacky family. And I'm lucky that they value my input or see me as someone who can help. I'm super, duper, above and beyond grateful for their help and support. It's adorable, when I take a step back, that my parents are currently camped out in the room across from my office because they've always liked being close to me and hated my teenage years when I refused to leave my room for anything other than school or meals. And as hard as it can be to watch them decline, I don't know that I could sleep from worry at being hours away from them. Any number of disasters and calamity could befall them. I know these people. I know exactly what would happen if they were on their own. *shudders* They would survive off cheese and crackers and the occasional bowl of oatmeal.

Anyone who gets this reference is awesome.

So what does my family interrupting me now (telling me what I'm listening to in my office is too loud, too annoying, stupid, not polka music or so fascinating they have to come stand over my shoulder and stare at my screen) have to do with my messed up sleeping schedule? Aside from the obvious correlation to a generational lack of self care skills.

Once my entire house is asleep, I can get hours upon hours of stuff done. My stuff. The stuff that makes my soul happy and thus me 35% more functional on a sleep deprived brain at 6:45 in the morning. Once the dinner's over, the hubby is settled in for the night, the old folks are snoozing or wrapping up their last tv show for the night (tv is a requirement for the over 60 crowd in my house after dinner), once the last load of laundry's in or I've made my hubby's lunch for the next day (do you have any idea what buying lunch everyday costs?!?!), once meds are taken and set up for the next day, once all the household stuff is done, my brain and soul play hopscotch. It's time. It is freaking time.

But the practical part of my brain points out I need sleep. It points out if I don't go to bed until 2 or 3, I'm only perpetuating the dragging my ass out of bed every morning routine.

There'd be bluebird pot pie for dinner that day.

So the battle continues. Right now, the staying up wins. I'm convinced if I go to bed earlier, I'll undergo some magical transformation or a unicorn will show up to grant a wish. And that's STILL not enough of a catalyst to instill respect in an earlier bedtime. I've always been a night person. I've always been more productive once the sun goes down. In the bitchy recesses of  my brain, I love being a night owl.

Oooh. Super official.

As the war wages, I'll rely on my second in command to keep me going.

Updates:

Writing: April was certainly productive in a way

Reading: About to finish Amy Poehler's book (laughing all the way) & starting 2 more.

Foreign Language: Hell's bells, that totally fell apart in April. Gotta put it back into the rotation.

Naps: :-/ Too few, too far between

Positivity: Honestly, been in a bit of a valley here but starting to climb back up.