Losing a part of me

Category: Sleep

  • Day 1201

    I have four hours left before I can sleep… or more likely four more hours before I can take Princess Sophie for her walk; after that, I can drop her off with my neighbour, and then I can get some sleep. I am exhausted and eagerly looking forward to that!

    I was hoping to get more sleep last night than I did… obviously. Not only was I unable to fall asleep until less than four hours before I had to wake up again, but I then woke up ninety minutes later… and could not fall back into slumber. When I eventually did, it was probably thirty minutes before my alarm was set to ring. Two hours of sleep is not nearly enough to keep a body going. It is a good thing that the class I am teaching this week is an easy one for me.

    While it was great to see my buddies yesterday afternoon, I am still not doing well. I am a wreck. How do I get myself out of this? I still have no idea.

  • Day 1199

    Someone asked me yesterday morning what my plans were for today and I had to confess that I did not have anything. I walked Princess Sophie in the morning, and of course I will walk her again in the evening… but that’s about it. I was originally supposed to spend the afternoon with a friend, but that fell through. If it rains I will connect with a buddy for cigars… he is scheduled to do an outdoor photo shoot, but if the weather is not cooperative then he is free. We’ll see.

    Next week I am teaching a class to an audience in Europe which means my sleep schedule will be well and truly upside down; I am working from 1:00am until 11:30am every day. Add to that my evening class and that has me working Monday Wednesday and Friday from 6:30pm-10:30pm, and then from 1-11. It will be a tiring week for sure.

    If it sounds like I am complaining then let me assure you that I am not. I love working, and while I wish I had a steady job with a guaranteed income, for the time being that is not my life, and I need to may hay when the sun shines. When a broker calls then I am almost always happy to take the job. It is wonderful that so many different training providers like using me, and it is a relief that I am making money again so I can continue to pay down my debt. With that said, my sleep has been atrocious for the last little while, and I am not expecting this coming week to be an easy one for me.

    Speaking of paying down my debt, I have some bills to pay so I am going to get on that. Have a great day folks…

  • Day 1193

    I finally got a bit of half-decent sleep last night. It seems the answer is simple… sleep like crap for a week and then finally go to bed early from sheer exhaustion.

  • Day 1176

    Yesterday was another emotional rollercoaster. I loved teaching in person, but I am still in all kinds of agony about other things that I do not care to go into. It has been over a week since I got the news, and I am still reeling from it. Despite getting to bed at a reasonable hour last night (I finished teaching, as usual, around 10:15pm, and my lights were off by 11:00pm) I did not fall asleep until nearly 2:00am. For the second night in a row my sleep score was 65. I really have to get that sorted if I am going to be of any use to myself or to anyone.

  • Day 1175

    I did not do well yesterday. Travel days are always difficult for me. I will do better today. It is still ridiculously cold out (-5°, with winds it feels like -8°) so I did not have a cigar last night. It is unlikely that I will have one today because I do have to teach this evening.

    My sleep was not great… I woke up a few times trying to figure out where I was. It was weird because I have spent more nights than I can count in hotels. I did get seven hours of sleep… it just was not restorative (according to my fitness watch).

    I am going downstairs to get a cup of coffee because while there is a Keurig in the room there is no milk. I will then make my way over to my client site where, for the first time in four years, I will teach in front of a live audience. Yay!

  • Day 1173

    My sleep was worse last night than I can remember it being. I finally fell asleep around 12:45am, and my eyes popped open at 3:05am. Thankfully I was able to have a nap in the morning… albeit a short one. Add to that, I was unable to move my bowels, and my weight loss streak came to an ignominious end.

    I am still exhausted beyond belief. Hopefully I can take another nap before my class this evening.

  • Day 1172

    Over a two-week period, I gained ten pounds. I have now lost that weight again, but I have a very long way to go. After four straight days of weight loss, this morning I was expecting to see a bad number on the bathroom scale; instead, my streak extended to five days. It was a relief indeed, but I hope that I can keep it up.

    I did not sleep well again last night. Friday night I slept marvelously, and my sleep score was 89. Last night my sleep was quite fitful, and my score was down to 65. How lovely would it be to have a long streak of great sleep? I am not holding my breath. Hopefully when I am able to start exercising again, I will be able to see some improvement.

    It was nice to sit with my lodge brother last night for dinner and a cigar. He is a mental health care advocate, and he knows a lot of what I am going through. While he cannot actively help me, at least he can listen. I know that he cares. He told me last night that I am not alone. If I were always among friends then it might feel that way, but as I lie in bed at night, awake, with only my wonderful doggie to keep me company, it is hard to remember that there is anyone in the world who really cares.

    Nobody knows what the future will bring, but I am hoping that things will be better. It is hard to see it from where I am… but I must hope.

    With Passover starting a week from today, and with the first Passover Seder next Saturday, I am tempted to make a pot of chicken soup with matzah balls for the week. I will decide shortly, but the idea of not having chicken soup with matzah balls during Passover is completely anathema to me. Even last year, when I was helping Leslie with an untenable situation that had us staying in a hotel for safety concerns, I found some to keep things normal. This year… well, I might drive into Hamilton to see if there is a Jewish deli that sells it and if not? Yes, I will make a pot. I suppose that will be one of my tasks for the day. Tracking down soup for Pesach. While it is not terribly fattening, it is very salty, so I will be retaining water for a few days.

    Also in advance of the holiday I am having my cleaning lady come in tomorrow to clean the place up. I do a decent job of keeping it neat, but I am woefully inadequate with certain aspects that she just does better. It will be nice to have a clean house for the holiday… even though from Tuesday through Saturday I will be away.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1169

    I am back on track with my partial program, and am while I am seeing results, two days is not enough to see anything really. I need to go for a few weeks to make it real.

    There is an old saying that if you do not like the weather in Canada… wait a minute. Yesterday the temperatures were hovering around 0°, with the wind chill making it feel like -5°. It snowed and when I looked out around 5:30pm there was probably 3″ of accumulation – not unheard of, but certainly not common for this part of the country on the second day of April. This morning when I took Her Floofness out there was only a hint of snow left, with temperatures hovering around 14°. It is rainy and windy (the wind chill right now has it feeling like 5°) but the actual high temperature is expecting to hit 17°by noon. The wind is not forecast to abate until the evening. Welcome to springtime in Canada.

    Since Princess Sophie did not feel like walking much in the rain, I am thinking about taking her out at lunch. I will, of course, also take her out before I head to Grimsby this evening… but we will see. I might have to answer a bunch of emails at lunch so that might not be feasible.

    I did something today that I have not done in decades: I popped the top button on my shirt from sneezing. It was not because my neck is bigger today than it was the last time I wore the shirt (it is not), but rather because I knew that I had secured it improperly… probably too high on my neck; it felt tight, and I was about to adjust the collar when AHCHOO!!!! pop goes the button. I decided to wear the shirt anyways – my tie was already tied, and I was running late because I slept through my alarm. Looking at myself in the mirror I still look dapper, so I will let it go. With that said, this shirt will go into a pile to go to the tailor.

    Speaking of sleeping in… I must have needed it, because I do not even remember my alarm going off this morning. While it is set for 5:45am, I rolled out of bed around 7am to the slight panic of ‘Crap, I’m late!’ I knew that I was not really late… especially since breakfast is no longer a sit-down meal, but a blended meal-replacement shake. I was still sitting at my computer at 8:05am with my shake and coffee. Had Princess Sophie wanted to go for her full walk that would have extended to 8:30am, which would have still had me logged in for my class thirty minutes early. No problem. My sleep score was 80 for the second night in a row. Owing to some difficult news I received on Tuesday, my sleep the previous night did not feel very good, but I guess the biometric measurements don’t lie. Last night felt better than the previous night, but that could be because I worked the 14-hour day, and was truly exhausted by the end of it.

    My class this week is going very well. I am really engaging with the students, and I feel that they are really enjoying it. What a relief after the class I delivered last week… I felt like a fish out of water and just could not get my footing. It is a relief to be back on terra firma. Next week I am teaching Wednesday through Friday, and I have to travel for it. It will be my first work-related hotel stay in over four years and I am traveling to… Toronto. Yes, Toronto is so big and the commute would be so long that they are putting me up in a hotel for three nights. Without traffic it would be an hour-long drive. In rush-hour that could easily be 2.5 hours each way, which would be fine for Thursday (when I am free in the evening), but Wednesday evening I have to teach and that would not work. I was not going to argue when they suggested I get a hotel.

    Okay, I guess I should get into the headspace for my class. Showtime is in ten minutes. Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1159

    It is today.

    Despite two large pours of whisky last night I was not able to sleep. I might have closed my eyes for two hours despite being in bed at 9:30pm. It will be an interesting day indeed. I only hope that I can keep my eyes open and alert through my interview.

    I did not make any good choices yesterday. I suppose it is excusable and understandable, but that does not make me feel any better about it.

    It is now 5:40am and I am already parked and waiting for the breakfast restaurant around the corner from my appointment to open. I have to wait another 20 minutes for them to let me in, but at least I can sit in the lobby of the hotel in which the restaurant is located. It is currently a balmy -5 degrees Celsius so the comfortable and warm couch is better than standing outside.

    In the next few hours I will know… or at least I will know more than I do now. The anxiety is killing me.

    The newly crowned prime minister of Canada called an election yesterday which means that the next six weeks will see the mud slinging between the parties. I am relieved that the election system in Canada is much more condensed than the American election cycle that never really stops; I only hope that we can be more respectful of those we disagree with than our American neighbours.

    Have a great day folks!

  • Day 1157

    Yesterday was a very hard day, if only because I had to work a fourteen-hour day on about three hours of sleep. I am glad I got through it, and while I did not immediately drop off to sleep after class (I always need time to decompress), I was in bed within fifteen minutes of turning off my computer. My fitness watch registered seven hours and forty-seven minutes of sleep with an incredible sleep score of 92. Whew!

    Princess Sophie went to the neighbour’s yesterday evening, so my morning routine was thrown off this morning. I am not sure when the last time I was this disorganized in the morning! No matter, in a little while I will get into the car and begin the drive to Montreal. I might stop along the way to see a friend along the way, but that is to be decided later. I have a new audio book on how nation-state actors have used malware to wreak havoc, and how it might lead to the destruction of our civilization as we know it. For many this would sound like dystopian fiction, but in my field it is a cross between a bit of light ‘reading’ and research.

    I did not lose weight this morning, but I stayed pretty much where I was yesterday. The combination of having needed another plate of pasta yesterday to make it through my evening class (and the fact that my attempts at moving my bowels this morning were fruitless) makes the status quo a bit of a victory. Now I just hope that I can make it through the trip without losing too much ground, and that I can return home on Tuesday to resume the program Wednesday morning.

    My stress and anxiety levels are again through the roof. My appointments on Monday will determine my future and there are too many factors that are outside of my control for me to be calm and relaxed about it. I have packed sufficient cigars for the next few days… and a bottle of whisky in case I need it.

    Have a great day folks!