Daylight saving time ended tonight. By the way, the name of it really annoys me. In my brain, it should be Daylight savings time. ‘Savings’ and ‘Time’ should be capitalized, too, but that is neither here nor there. For some reason, I thought it was next weekend, not this. Probably because it felt weird to have it the day after Halloween. which, by the way, is my favorite holiday–even if I don’t acutally celebrate it. Look, it’s complicated. And it’s not what this post is about.
When I realized that tonight was when Daylight Saving Time ended, my annual gripe about said tradition surged once again. We have artificial lig9ht now. We don’t need to follow the whims of the natural world.
I don’t care which one is chosen, by the way, but for the love of all the gods, please pick one. I understand why people on either side of the divide want it their way whereas I don’t care. Just fucking choose one. It feels so quaint to
Different day and a different note: I’m so tired. And I think I may be coming down with something. It’s so hard to tell what is something that could be life-threatening and what isn’t. It’s harder because of my past medical crisis, which means that, understandably, I’m on edge. I tend to be like, “If it’s still like this ______ (this time, being tomorrow as tomorrow is Monday), I’ll call my doctor.
This is reasonable in general, but not if it’s an emergency. Which I don’t know how to gauge. First of all, I’m always exhausted. I’m running on a permanent sleep shortage, so that’s not a good way to figure out if I’m really sick or not. When I remember what it was like right before my medical crisis, it wasn’t this. I could not move and was completely fatigued.
I just took a nap, and I feel better. Still don’t feel great, but better than before. It reminds me of how sleep deprived I really am and how I could sleep for days. I don’t like to take naps because they just make me more tired. Also, it’s me falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep, waking up, etc. Usually, I have a video going, so it’s also me going back to the beginning of the video and then falling asleep again.
When I had my medical crisis, one of the few upsides was how much sleep I got–and how good it was. Granted, I was drugged to the gills, which helped. I got a solid eight hours a night for months, and I never felt better in my life. Who knew sleep was so important and did so much good for the body? Everyone, that’s who. It’s just a question of being able to get that sleep.
Related, I’m going through menopause. Or I would say I’ve been through it. But the symptoms I felt from it are what I’m feeling now. Some compressions on my shoulders and chest (not heart), tingles on my face, and cold flashes. Yes, because I’m such a contrarian, I had cold flashes in addition to hot flashes–and much more of the former than the latter. As someone who doesn’t get cold, it was an interesting experience. Not going to lie, I wasn’t pleased by it. Cold is my sanctuary, and I did not like it being used against me. It wasn’t as bad as the hot flashes, though.
Given my past medical crisis, it’s not hard to fear that it was happening again.
Side note: When I woke up from my nap, I had a cramp in my left foot. I hate cramps so much. I can deal with much more intense pain, but for whatever reason, cramps really bother me a lot. I think because the pain isn’t constant. It spikes and ebbs, and the only thing to really do is endure it. Massaging it and walking helps a bit, but really, it’s just waiting it out.
Anyway, back to Daylight saving time. Get rid of it. The end.
Look. We have fake light now. I know there’s an argument on each side of the divide (more light in the morning versus more light at night). I do realize that it can be depressing to not have sunlight at one end or the other. But, you know what? Deal with it one way one season and the other way another season. That seems eminently fair, right?
As a tangent, it really shows how meaningless time is. Or rather, how we label time. It’s a construct, is what I’m saying. Not the passage of time; that’s obviously real. But the fact that we can just casually move the clock forward or back an hour proves that time as we experience it is a social construct. I’m not against it, mind, because it would be utter chaos without this touch point. (See, I’m not totally against hierarchy when it’s necessary.)
I don’t mind the dark. I’ll get my bias out of the way up front. In fact, I love the dark. Around four in the morning is when I feel the most alive. It’s when everyone else (well, mostly) is asleep, and I have the world to myself. Everything is quiet, and I am at peace. It’s scary, though, how quickly my brain adapts to the new time. Or rather, how I still went to bed late. I was so tired, but I just could not make myself go to bed early.
In the end, for me, it really doesn’t matter if we have DST or not. It’s just annoying because there’s no reason for it to exist. That’s my practical side, atnd it annoys me twice a year. I was doubly surprised this time because I thought it was next week. It seemed weird that it happened the day after Halloween, but it was two days after Halloween last year–so pretty much the same thing.
I’m struggling. Sleep is continuing to be my nemesis. I need to work on it.