Another Sleepless Night, Another Useless Day

Very early in the morning yesterday, there was a terrific thunderstorm here in Toronto. By 5am I was wide awake listening to the booming thunder and crashing rain, and watching my bedroom periodically light up. Too heavy to move, I simply lay and bore witness. I managed to sort-of get back to sleep as the storm waned, but never really quite made it back down.

Yesterday, however, was a pretty good day. I managed my meeting, as you know if you saw my blog yesterday, I went for ice cream with my son and his Step-mom, even went to the drugstore to buy some required items. It was all topped off by a dip in the pool, and dinner and sparklers at my parents' house.

All fine and lovely. I was well-tired, but not so bad by bed time.

Being that we slept at my parents', my son decided he wanted to sleep in his hidy-hole behind the couch, and being that my Mom said ok, I saw no point in arguing. So I went to sleep.
 Again at around 5am, I was woken, this time, by a little voice that said "I want to come in there with you." Normally, I'd have said sure, but I was in a twin bed, and this child is big and moves around a lot. So I explained that he wouldn't fit, and he said that there was nowhere else to go, because the blow-up mattresses were halfway deflated. I don't know what I said, but he left. A few minutes later, when the situation actually hit me, I woke up fully, and went to check on him. I found him wandering around, dragging his exhausted little self out of my old room. I asked what was wrong, and he said the bed in there was full of sand. Indeed it was. Barely able to keep myself upright, I told him to go to my mom. "But that bed's full" he says. At that point, my heart nearly broke for this little boy, wandering about trying to find a place to sleep. I told him to wake my mom and she'd help him. So he did, and she did, and he was sound asleep in a matter of minutes.

I however, was not. It's an interesting thing, that once my sleep is interrupted, it is nearly impossible for me to go back down. I lay in bed, falling in and out of consciousness for the next 4 hours, but never made it back to a deep sleep, which is what my body desperately needs.

This is the first real active thing I've done today, and it's 5:40 in the afternoon.

If I didn't remember those days so clearly, I would not believe it had ever been possible for me to stay out until 3 or 4 in the morning and go to work the next day. Now it seems that two nights of incomplete sleep can knock me down almost completely. I went from a 5 on the functional capacity scale right down to a 3 today.

While my conscious mind understands this, and is ok with it, there is also the emotional side of me that is frustrated, discouraged and saddened by this. It feels like crap, and knowing why I feel like crap doesn't stop me feeling like crap. I hate not being able to function after two nights of less sleep. Not even no sleep - just less sleep. It sucks. It makes me feel like all the progress I've made was just a dream, or a passing thing. It makes it real that any little thing can knock me back down.

It's incredibly frustrating that with all I do control, and with all the effort I make, two completely unrelated, random, and out-of-my control experiences can leave me feeling so lousy for so long. It's one thing when I choose to overextend for whatever reason, but another thing entirely when outside forces wreak havoc on my weakened system.

Now, since I've experienced other setbacks, I know this is part of the game, and since I am feeling a bit better now, I'm quite confident that tomorrow will be a better day, so long as I can get some sleep...