Awake at 5am...again

With the Christmas shopping, visiting, packing, toilet-unclogging (see previous post), glasses-returning (see post before that one), and cold season in full swing, life changes multiple times before I even have time to consider posting. So here I am, awake again at 5am, posting a second time today. Because I might have had a sinus infection and an alien abduction before I can make it back here for another post.

It is beginning to dawn on me how erratic my body is. For the last few weeks, I can no longer nap, and I sleep for a maximum of 8 hours a night. This for an individual used to 9-10 hours, minimum. I still get tired, although not exhausted. And I'm working on week two of a sinus cold. Seriously, what up?

I'm not sure how others experience daily life, but I'm never sure if I'll wake up feeling dead, 9 hours after going to sleep, or at 5am, feeling sort of awake. And where the day will go after that? Will I wake up feeling a slight undercurrent of dread, that will carry with me the whole day, for no apparent reason, or will I feel at home in the world (one of each happened in Paris last weekend)? Why am I still awake, and why can't I nap? Is this a feature of my system, or an indicator of some change? Will I be perfectly capable of handling the homestead while M is away on a few overnights for work, or will my cough mess up my back and will I be asking him to cut another trip short because I can't lift my kid? Will I have endless patience with A's process, and see all the "No! Nein! Don't talk! No!" as part of her working out her place in our family and her voice in this world, or will I lose it, cry and be angry and just storm out of the room 3 times in one afternoon?

M often wants me to give him my 5-year plan, and honestly, I can't even give you my 5-day one with more than 50% certainty. My life changes on monumental (can/can't lift my wallet, much less my child; can/can't sleep enough from hormones or coughing fits; connected/unconnected to the greater world) scales, every day it seems. Some weeks are not like this - those ones that passed more slowly, perhaps. But this wintery, snowy, Christmas season is giving me quite the work-up. I mostly take it in stride, in a kind of resigned-to-it way, but it does make for an uncertain living situation.

Not a thing I can plan for - stability or instability.

Except that it is always a good idea to buy refundable, or rescheduleable tickets. For anything.