I sometimes feel as if the big E is permanently attached to my body. I’m often exhausted, and regardless of all the tasks I should be working on, I make my way to the recliner to watch TV, code for “take a nap.” When I take a nap, it does help make up for my lack of sleep at night.
My alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. to have quiet time before the day starts. The problem with getting up early is that most nights, I stay up until the witching hour. Then, I feed and walk the dog, fix the coffee pot for the next morning, fill our water containers to put at our bedsides, take my medicine and make sure Harold has taken his. Finally, I put on my pj’s (if I’m not already wearing them), brush my teeth and use my Water Pik. The timeframe that all this preparation for bed is often determined by how long the dog takes. Once I’m in bed, I read until I’m sleepy enough that I can shut my eyes and drift away.
My short nights are a carryover from my caregiving days. Jim would only sleep about four hours a night, and that meant I slept about four hours each night. I didn’t often have the luxury of a nap since I worked fulltime. At work, I coffeed and went through the days like a buzz saw. At home, I ran on empty on a regular basis and zombied my way through the weekends and evenings.
Life can be exhausting at times and it takes all the energy I can muster, and more. It’s staying at a task for one more hour, complete one more project, push it to the limit, and cross another item off the To-Do List.
Lately, as if there isn’t enough to do, we are completely renovating our rental house. Daily decisions have to be made until my head is spinning from the effort. We are flooded with bids, bills, and various contractors. By default, one trustworthy contractor makes sure that the other contractors do what they are supposed to do. We’re nearing the goal line on the inside, now for the outside. I will be so thankful when the house is finished and rented.
The main difference between the rental and the house that Jim and I built is that we did almost all the work ourselves. It took us a lot longer since we tried to pay as we went. We finally broke down and made a small loan to finish the inside. Every spare moment was spend building on the house, but when we looked at what we had accomplished it was amazing.
The thing about running on empty—when you fill the tank, you can go for miles and miles before the gauge shows the big E again.
Copyright © Oct 2023 by L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
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