Sleep Deprivation and Disappointment

I'm tired. No, I'm more than tired. I crave sleep the way an alcoholic craves a drink. I think of sleep as some sort of unattainable, unimaginable luxury that I can't afford right now.

I think the whole concept of sleep is flawed anyhow. If I just didn't need to sleep, I would be fine. Why do we need so much anyway? Joyce Meyer says that it takes the 8 hours we sleep for us to recover from the day that we lived. I guess she's right. I know the metaphysical reasons we need to sleep, but they just frustrate me too.

I think I've spent the better part of the last 5 and 1/2 years trying to convince someone that they *do* want to go to sleep, and once they are asleep that they want to *stay* asleep. Why is that? Nobody has to convince me to go to sleep. So kids don't sleep until they are, in all likely hood, teenagers. Then they sleep all the time. You can't get them out of the bed, from what I've heard. (And don't think there won't be massive amounts of payback issued.) Then, as they get to college, if it was anything like my college experience, they won't sleep again.

I worked at a restaurant, working past midnight most nights, then had to be at my student teaching school around 7. There were many days that I feel asleep (once again, I hear Ross, from "Friends", saying, "You fell ASLEEP?" I think Allen and I quote television and movies too much....)in the afternoon, in my classroom. My precious cooperating teacher would just smile and nudge me. She knew what I was up against.

So there were some years, in between college and kids, where I slept. Then, in March of 2001, my sleeping career changed forever. I became with child. And slept so badly in our small, full bed, that I kicked Allen clear out of the bedroom. Poor man had to go buy a futon and put it in the computer room. Don't feel too sorry for him, though, because the farther away from me, and my cranky sleep deprived self that he got was better for him.

So, I didn't sleep through any of my 3 and 1/4 pregnancies. So that's 132 weeks. And my kids didn't sleep much their first 6 months of life. So that's roughly 75 more weeks. Poor Zane is going on month 13 of poor sleeping, so we'll just say, that for the last, oh who am I kidding, 5 1/2 years, I haven't slept much.

And I keep hearing that how, during menopause, we will have trouble sleeping then too. And don't most elderly people have trouble sleeping?? So the one phase in my adult life that I should be sleeping through, is being spent stumbling around in a fog of sleep deprivation. Why can't we do the no-sleeping-menopause thing now, while I'm not sleeping anyway? How ironic is that?

My eyes burn, my legs are heavy. I can't remember anything, nor choose correct words when speaking. I wish for 10 solid hours, of uninterrupted, blissful sleep, in a cold, dark room. *Sigh* Oh well. I have to say, that the 3 reasons that I don't sleep, are the most amazing blessings I've ever known, besides my husband. And you know what? Some days, he gets up with all of them, and tip toes down the stairs with then, and then I get one or two whole hours of blissful, uninterrupted sleep. That will do for now...

Disappointment

I was disappointed today. And you know what? I've never really thought about how narcissistic it is to be disappointed. Disappointment is defined as, "a feeling of dissatisfaction that results when your expectations are not realized"

My expectations. How horrible. I want to say, "Well, Father, that sucked. Now, I give it to you, and I'm done with it. Teach my from it, show me if I was wrong, where I was wrong, and/or how I can become a better child of yours because of that disappointment, and let's go on to something else."