I’m back with the daily weather report. Why? Because it’s still occupying my mind, and I’m going to keep going on with it until I’m bored with it. Here is my post from yesterday in which I did just that and a whole lot more. It’s 62F now, which seems to be pretty normal for this time of year. I ran to the pharmacy and for the first time this season, I wore shorts. Long shorts, yes, but shorts, nonetheless. It was such a nice day out, and it’s finally spring? I think? I am not an outdoor person at all, but it felt nice to have the sun on my face. And 62F is right at the top of my comfort zone.
This is another thing I know and accept about myself–I hate the heat. I have hated it since I was little. It doesn’t make sense because I’m hypothyroid, which usually means quick to feel the cold. However, I was hyperthyroid before that, which maybe is where my hatred of heat comes from. It should have gone away when my thyroid was destroyed, but it did not.
Now, my tolerance of/enjoyment of the cold is slightly lower than it was before I hit menopause, but I still much prefer it to the heat. And, to me, the heat is anything over 65F. Actually, up to 70F is tolerable. Once we go over 70F, then all bets are off.
Back when I was younger, I was much more into the cold than I am now. I mean, I was dancing in the snow naked at midnight for funsies. I haven’t done it in some time, but it made me feel so alive. I may have to revive it for next winter. Then again, I’m not sure I will be able to handle it, either. I’m not going to do it foolishly if my body can no longer deal with it.
Similarly, I used to play a fun (for me) game of seeing how long it would take me in the winter before I rolled up my window. When I was at my peak, I could tolerate the cold until roughly -10F. Then, I would reluctantly roll the window up. After that, it was another new game of when was I going to turn on the heater? I did it once or twice a winter, which was about how often I used the heater inside the house. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. I probably used it three to five times a winter in the house–and that was mostly as I slept.
I can tell I’m getting older because I have my heater in my house at 62F all day round instead of 62F during the day and 60F at night. Yes, it’s just a matter of 2 degrees, but it’s still a significant different.
I’m still adjusting my sleeping schedule. I went to bed around 4:30 a.m. last night and got up at noon. Well, a bit before it. So seven hours of sleep, which is decent for me. I got up once to pee, but quickly went back to sleep again.
I feel like I’m slipping, though. I’m trying to get to bed by three, which I’ve done for a few nights in a row. But it was creeping back by fifteen minutes each night. I rationalized it to myself because it’s still much better than what it was before (which is true), but I know how easy it is to let it slip back to where it was before.
Usually, when I make an edict in my brain, I stick to it. This time, though, I’m struggling. I am keeping it within the outer limits of what I want to do with it, but in a few nights, if I keep going as I am, I’m going to be back to my old schedule.
Before my medical crisis, my norm was to go to bed by two to four and then get up six to seven hours later. Even then, I was trying to push my bedtime back to 1 a.m. I will just say it now. That’s completely unrealistic and isn’t going to happen. I can wish it as much as I want, but it’s just not a thing that is reasonable.
I’m all about setting aspirational goals, but they can’t be completely unrealistic. Me going to bed by midnight/one? Not going to happen. It just isn’t. I have more of a chance to get there by going forward an hour a night then trying to push back my bedtime. It’s still not going to happen either way, though.
I know me. I know how I am. I can wrestle myself to manage a three to eleven a.m. schedule on the regular, but it would take too much effort to make it one in the morning. It’s all about effort exerted and if it’s worth it or not. For me, it’s worth it to try to maintain a 3 a.m. bedtime. That seems doable especially as I’m already mostly there. Kind of there. not quite there.
Does hope spring eternal? Yeah, it does. But that doesn’t mean I have to believe it. I know many people think I’m a pessimist, but I think I’m a realist. I believes in dreams to a certain extent, yes; I don’t beileve they always come true Or even often come true. I know people want to believe they can, and life would be much harsher without that belief. However, people also have to know that the odds are radically against them.
I think that’s something that people, especially Americans, don’t understand–yes, a miracle can happen, but it’s by definition, a one-in-a-million. When I came back from the dead (wice!), that was truly a miracle. I mean, it was probably more like a one-in-a-billion chance, which makes me feel like I’ve used up all my luck for this life. My brother has joked that we should have bought a lottery ticket that day because of how lucky I was to survive.
One thing that people do is–no. I’m not going down that path right now.
I’m still tired as fuck. This is not the exhaustion I felt when I got walking (non-Covid-related) pneumonia that kicked off my medical crisis. This is more the fatigue that I feel on a regular basis because I’m just so fucking tired. All the time. It’s a mainstay of my life, and it’s something I’m mostly used to.
Or I thought I was.
Now that I’m trying to catch up on my sleep, I’m painfully aware of how short I am. Not as much as I used to be, but still quite a bit. For two or so years after my medical crisis, I was able to get a good amount of sleep a night. I mean, my body wos fucked up bad, and I was high as a kite on all the sedatives I was on, so it made sense that I was getting really good sleep. I slept for eight hours without waking every night.
I truly didn’t know it was possible before my medical crisis. I never slept for more than four hours at a time unless I was severely sleep-deprived, and I never felt like I could catch up. That’s similar to how I feel now, but at least I’m trying.