I used to be such a good sleeper. I fell asleep. I stayed asleep. Around 10 years ago that changed. I started waking myself up a lot moving around the bed, constantly changing positions. Then menopause hit, bringing night sweats, which are impossible to sleep through. Now, as I close in on 60, I’m just aging, and research shows that aging means you often have a harder time falling asleep and staying asleep. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even as night sweats have lessened in intensity, aging has not, thankfully, as the alternative to not aging is a grim option. But this not very good sleep<\/em> situation has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Most nights I get shitty sleep, waking with racing thoughts or a broken heart or startled by fear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was the case last night. At 2:30 and 4:30, I was awake enough that I considered going out to the couch or the day bed in the back room to read or listen to a podcast. This is the third I’ve awoken like this this week. I tried the day bed the first time and the couch the second, and I tossed and turned the rest of the night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Predictably, I woke up tired this morning. Low buzz of irritation and anxiety right beneath the sleepy surface. And a perfect backdrop to do my part in escalating a disagreement with MTB about going to the grocery store, into a fight. It was stupid. I felt shitty. MTB felt shitty. The shitty feeling casting a shadow into the afternoon, long after the fight was over.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think MTB and I are doing pretty good managing our lives together in our small house, with 2 dogs, 1 of whom can be ALOT at night when she devolves into a barking spell that lasts an hour or so. But we can’t do KIT (keeping it together) all the time. I’m not immune to the crummier parts of myself. And I’m only really aware, at least helpfully aware, of my diminished capacity in hindsight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s better now. I wrote this blog. MTB is doing yoga. I’m going to make a pot of black beans for the second week in a row. <\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I used to be such a good sleeper. I fell asleep. I stayed asleep. Around 10 years ago that changed. I started waking myself up a lot moving around the bed, constantly changing positions. Then menopause hit, bringing night sweats, which are impossible to sleep through. Now, as I close in on 60, I’m just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[61,60],"class_list":["post-1697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pandemic","tag-corona","tag-covid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1697"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1698,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1697\/revisions\/1698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proteanme.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}