Hello sleep deprivation my old friend…I’d like you to go away again…
Every single Sunday I find myself lying in bed wondering when my body will let me actually fall asleep. Part of this is because I stay up later on the weekend than I should and sleep later in the day than I should. At least this has become a bit of a habit of mine for the latter part of the year. I feel like for a while I was on this schedule of going to sleep by at least eleven. The sad thing is for anyone who knows me they know that is actually early. I was in the habit of going to bed by ten most nights and laying there. I was able to relax some.
Part of me feels that is it because my sleep schedule is all sorts of messed up. However, there is also a small part of me that knows that part of that might be because of how much I want to truly accomplish before going to sleep. I seriously am beginning to debate if there are enough hours in a day and how we can go about lengthening the actual day, but not the work day. That sounds fun. More time to write, more time to read, more time to spend with people. More time to sleep. Wait, sorry. I know that the reason I feel that way right now is because I am telling myself to stay up and write. I am telling myself to stay up and watch something with my father. I want more time.
Time is seriously a bitch. That’s right. I think Father Time is a bitch. I know that logically I am only one person and I can only do so much. But I really think we have our priorities all sorts of messed up. Our brains inform us that in order to be a good adult we have to pay our bills. In order to pay those bills we have to have a job. I think my biggest issue with this is the amount of time we spend we spend at work. A lot of us spend time having a horrible commute. Sometimes we have to go by the store to pick up ingredients for dinner, or go somewhere to get dinner in general.
In fact, by the time we add eight hours of sleep a night into our work week we should technically have forty hours to do with as we please. Forty hours. That is absolutely insane. This is of course if we have a full four hour week. I cannot help but think how crazy this all sounds though now that I have put the numbers down. Ultimately that is about eight hours a day to do what we want. And some of those hours are of course spent paying bills, running errands, going to doctors, and things we do not want to do. I would say by the time we finish up on most days running around like chickens with our heads cut off we have about four hours to ourselves. Four.
This is of course we listen to our so-called boundaries and do not try to bite off more than we can chew. And in a society where saying no is like slapping someone in the face that is rather difficult. Do not get me wrong, I like going out. In fact, I love going out. But I will admit that I need down time. I need me time. I need to be able to sit on my couch, or in my bed at some point in the day while reading and petting a fur baby. And the sad part is I get this time far more than others I know. Bless those of you reading this who have kids. I am beginning to think you all are saints and should be given some sort of gold star.
When all is said and done, I am not good at listening to boundaries. I want to read that extra chapter. I want to watch one more episode. I feel that I can watch a movie, write about it, and read all before bed. And somewhere in between there I’m going to eat something healthy, get in 10,000 steps, and read. So yes, part of my insomnia is probably my fault. Part of my insomnia also belongs to my anxiety issues, but that is another post for another time. I do no think that it is asking too much for us to be able to chill and decompress somehow in a manner we want to. Because in all honesty, if we do not take the time that want quickly becomes a need.
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