My sleep is fucked. It’s big time fucked. In fact, I should be trying to sleep pnow, but I am not doing it, obviously.
I have always had a bad relationship with sleep. Fraught, I might even say. It started when I was a little kid because I just could not sleep during the ‘regular’ hours when a kid was supposed too sleep.
I found out it was in part a thyroid issue, but getting that taken care of did not correct my sleep. Fast-forward decades later, and through Taiji, I managed to get six-and-a-half hours a night and only waking up twice during the night.
It wasn’t great, but it was the best I had ever had in my life.
Then I had my medical crisis when after I turned fifty. The one plus of that harrowing experience was that it righted my sleep schedule. I was so drugged up in the hoospital and exhausted from what I went through, I slept nearly all the time while I was in the hospital.
When I got home, I would go to bed at ten in the evening and get up at six. Then, my schedule slowly started reverting to my norm. Ideally, I would like to go to bed around three or four and get up eight hours later.
I keep blowing past that time, though.
I wish I had gotten it checked out when I was a kid. I know I could now, and I should, but it’s difficult to get me to the doctor. I do my once a year because I have to get my blood checked for my thyroid, but that’s about it.
A friend suggested that I do something drastic to get my sleep back on track. I have thought about going to see my two besties in Philly as a way of disrupting what I have going on. I have not flown since my medical crisis. Well, since before that, really, as it was preceded by the pandemic. The last time I flew was in 2019, and I’m not sure if I want to do it again.
I hate flying for several reasons. One, people like to talk to me regardless of if I want to talk to them or not. I have that kind of face, I guess, that just invites conversation. In addition, I’ve had more than one person ask me to switch seats, which I hate.. I specifically get a ticket as soon as I can because I need an aisle seat. I need to be able to sleep without being disturbed–well, I did in te past. Why? I get motion sickness when I travel. Back when I used to take Dramamine, I would sleep for the entire flight–even when I flew from LA to Taiwan.