An Insight *

EDIT: We have SNOW again this morning. Looks about an inch or so….

I know that this is perfectly obvious and I wouldn’t blame you at all if you are laughing loudly after you read my thoughts, but this morning I suddenly realized something.

It is that I am no longer a young person. I physically NEED to rest and sleep.

My mantra used to be "If it really needs doing, I will find some way to do it." As an example, when I got a divorce I was determined I would not, as so many divorced women do, lose my house, so I got a second job. I worked from 7:30 to 3:30 teaching seventh graders and from 4:00 to 10:30 working in a chain bookstore. I got up at 4 am to get everything done. I spent weekends cooking and cleaning. I was quite proud of the fact that I apparently needed very little sleep.

But, apparently, this is not true when one is in one’s seventies. 

All this enlightenment came this morning when I noticed that after 11 hours of sleep,  I woke up feeling normal! I am no longer walking around in that "breakdown haze" I have been operating in for the last few days. I no longer wonder what is happening to me in that I totally lost it when I found I couldn’t cope with something that I now see is relatively minor. At her suggestion, I turned it over to a very nice social worker, Fred’s case worker, and she is dealing with it.

I have always known that I need time alone and I have coped with that. {Fred is the same way, incidentally.} But apparently as well as time alone, I also need sleep!

Ha! Who would have guessed!