My sleep used to be much worse than it is these days. I’m certain the CPAP machine helps (although wearing the mask and the experience of continuous positive air pressure are somewhat unpleasant and took getting used to). Sometimes my sleep is still of poor quality for one reason or another. Sometimes it’s just not enough sleep to feel rested. Sometimes I’m plagued by nightmares. This morning I’m faced with insufficient sleep of poor quality, due to interruptions (noise mostly).
I reliably wake up ridiculously early. Generally at 04:30, probably a lasting byproduct of early mornings in the military, construction, and long commutes for morning shifts of various sort. It requires days of leisure time without an alarm being set to boost my chance at “sleeping in”, and I rarely do. When my Traveling Partner and I were developing our friendship, he had encouraged me to take control of one factor I definitely could control to improve how much sleep I got; my bedtime. He suggested I go to bed earlier, based on when I wake and how much sleep I need (back then I was often up until midnight or later, still up early). It was advice that made a lot of difference for me. I go to bed pretty early as a result, rarely later than 21:00. (He has said, now and then, that he’d enjoy my company and would like me to stay up later, but not only do I still wake up early, I also deal often with interrupted sleep. Going to bed early is my only reliable chance at enough rest.)
Why am I on about sleep and sleep quality this morning? I didn’t sleep well last night, and didn’t get enough rest for the day ahead. It’s occupying my thoughts.
This morning I’m tired. So tired. It was after 21:00 before I went to sleep last night. I woke around 01:50, got up to pee and went back to bed, eventually falling sleep again. Sometime shortly after three, my Traveling Partner woke me. He couldn’t sleep, and was having difficulty breathing. He goes to the living room, wakeful and irritable. I try to return to sleep. Not much success. Every time I start to drift off, another noise wakes me, again. A cough. My partner trying to clear his throat or his sinuses. The scrape of a chair along the floor. His frustration and sometimes panic feel palpable.
I definitely need more than four and a half hours of sleep, and I keep trying. I’m startled from a sound-but-too-brief moment of sleep by a firm hand knocking at the Anxious Adventurer’s adjacent bedroom door, and my partner’s irritated inquiry. I groan quietly and turn over and try sleep once more.
I drifted in and out of a restless sleep from the time my Traveling Partner woke me until the clock read 05:00 a couple hours later. My head aches. My eyeballs feel gritty and dry. I want literally nothing to do with other people, at all. At least not right now. I dress and leave the house. I don’t feel like walking, either. I just want to be alone with my irritation for awhile. I swing through a local coffee chain for too many shots of espresso over ice, black. Fuck Monday. I’m so not ready for this.
My Traveling Partner had returned to bed as I was leaving for the morning. I hope he gets back to sleep and gets some healthy rest. I get no second chances on a work day. I sigh to myself. It’s not his fault he’s having difficulty sleeping (or breathing).
I’ve set clear healthy reasonable boundaries about my sleep and not waking me if I’m sleeping, unless I’ve asked to be wakened (which I almost never do; I know how to use an alarm clock). I respect the sleep of others. Somehow I have still found myself in partnerships in which my partner(s) have found some justification for waking me, under one circumstance or another (and in some past relationships often). There’s rarely any sort of actual emergency that requires my attention, more that someone “wants a word” or to ask a question, or share a complaint. This frustrates the shit out of me, because it’s already difficult enough to get the rest I need.
Where caregiving or real emergencies are concerned, of course I roll my ass out of bed and do the needful without complaint. Everything else, I try to look past my fatigue and irritation to understand what is going on that might push a person to undermine someone else’s very necessary rest, and I try to be a compassionate and understanding partner, family member, or friend. This morning I’m having to fight through more annoyance than usual; I stayed up later last night to hang out with my Traveling Partner awhile longer, and I’m paying for it with lack of sleep. It feels “unfair”, but it isn’t really about that, and it’s definitely not personal. I made a choice. Just damned annoying that this is the outcome.
… I’m so fucking tired…
It’s been many days since I slept deeply through the night and woke feeling rested. I remind myself that it could be worse. I once endured more than a decade of sleep so poor I counted it a good night if I got even two hours of unbroken sleep, and rarely slept more than four hours total in a night. This is not that.
I sit quietly at a local trailhead, listening to rain tapping the roof of my Traveling Partner’s truck. It’s comfortable and warm, and I am alone with my thoughts and my coffee. I definitely don’t feel like dealing with people right now. I’m tired, headachey, and irritable. Unfit for company. It’s too early for work. I don’t feel like walking.
I breathe, exhale, and relax, and focus on sorting myself out to face the day ahead. Soon enough I’ll have to begin again. I’ll do my best. It will have to be enough.
Evening Light 