Daily Check In, 2

‘Nother night, ‘nother morning. Today feels better, or rather, I feel brighter today. It’s the up and down which is exhausting – not knowing how I’ll feel when I wake up. But yeah, this morning I’ve been cheerfully talking to myself in the shower and having a quiet chuckle. So what’s different?

I went to bed at four, so I haven’t had a lot of sleep. Long experience with not sleeping properly unfortunately informs me that this bubbly brightness is most likely the rather manic edge I take on with the resurgence of mild insomnia. That’s OK, but it means there’s a crash coming somewhere down the line. If I keep eating I should be able to stave it off till tomorrow. Course, I haven’t had breakfast yet because the idea of eating when tired is nauseating… There’s some catch-22 bullshit right there. Even if it is a kind of manic vibe, I can make use of it. I’ve got a bunch of fiddly website things to do for work and close focus is easier like this. I also had a bright idea for some promo of our Improvised Star Wars Show, so hopefully I’ll tinker with that at lunchtime. It’s a long day though, with Smash Night this evening… Thankfully I’m not actually performing this month, and equally thankfully, my alternative plans which ruled me out of the show have also not come to fruition, as I doubt I could last 6 hours of car travel and boardgaming tonight!

I suspect another reason I feel a bit more chipper today is that I knew I was going to be tired. Usual bed time, but I didn’t get that falling asleep feeling that I adore. So I got up at 12.30 again (this is good sleep hygiene – don’t stay in bed if you’re not sleeping), just shy of becoming enraged about not being asleep. That’s a weird, familiar sensation: being slowly filled with heated rage at my body forcing me to stay awake. Instead I got up and had a mug of Ovaltine. It didn’t make me sleepy. But it was nice. I settled back on the sofa with my current book (The Crippled God, book 10 of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, by Steven Erikson) and put a minor dent in the page count while fussing little Pixie (insane black kitten) in her Bagpuss nest. It’s not the worst way to spend the early hours of the morning. By 2am I was down to a maximum of five hours sleep, which is not enough.

I find there’s a weird balance. Getting not quite enough sleep is much worse than getting way too little. I assume that’s got something to do with periods of REM sleep and so on. On three hours I reckon I’m just after completing a cycle, so my brain is tricked into thinking it’s had about enough sleep (the fool, I have surpassed my meatsuit). We’ll check on how that lasts later…

This is self-help writing, don’t freak out. Plainly I am struggling a little, but scribbling about it will help, eventually.