Saturday Morning

I look forward to the late-night hours after G has gone to bed.  Sometimes those are the hours that I seem to be most myself.  I work on projects, I read, sometimes I watch TV, I dream.  No matter how tired I need some time, even a few minutes, to catch up with myself.

 

This week I was better at putting my own goals first, at making room for me, and also making room for "we" in our daytime schedules.  Neither of these is easy in a world that revolves primarily around G.  Although it sounds strange, the "we" part gets left out of "G" time all too often, and there are days when sharing is difficult.   This week was more rich in togetherness than usual, and this was good.  

 

But it is only at night after G has gone to bed that I seem to be most fully myself. It is no surprise then that I have trouble balancing the need for sleep with the need for those precious hours where there are no demands.  Often my night-time sleep is interrupted. Sometimes I get grumpy although I try not to.  It becomes a difficult choice.  Do I stay up a little longer, knowing full well that I will probably not be allowed to sleep through until morning.  Or do I give in to tiredness, knowing that sleep alone is not enough. I need both, I need sleep, and I need that unencumbered time.   I try to find a happy medium between competing demands. 

 

We went through a rocky week where sleep neither patient nor caretaker got more than 2 to 3 hour snatches of sleep.  Then we caught up a bit and I was able to sleep through the night but at the cost of falling asleep myself almost as soon as I got G settled into bed.  

 

Last night the inner demands took over and I was compelled to stay awake much of the night, unable to sleep, but perfectly content with myself and the silence of my space.  Blessedly G slept well even after I came to bed at 4 AM, usually his most restless period.  Of course we were up at 6 but I expected that.  

 

What did I do?  I watched "Legally Blonde".  I made stock and baked brownies. I knitted and finished another piece of my current sweater.  I sat with two cats jockeying for position on my lap as I read A Three Dog Life which hit far to close to home in places and made me cry and pause and have to put the book down and distract myself before returning, hence the light and entertaining movie.  Besides I love that movie precisely because everything is such and extreme caricature of reality; it makes it so much easier to laugh at ourselves and let our defenses down allowing wisdom to sneak in unawares.  The book was not so light and filled with laughter, but I  can't really tell you about the book yet.  Too much of it is too close.  I wonder how I would feel about it if my life were different.  I will never know the answer to that question.  

 

Of course I know this extreme wakefulness is a symptom of something else, of something I am avoiding or not facing, perhaps not even admitting to myself.  It is a new thing.  Yes I love the evening hour or two, but these recent inability to sleep, this craving for the darkness as opposed to the daylight is something else.  I know I am on the cusp, it is just there, just past the tip of my mental fingertips, waiting for me to grab hold. I know I'll get there. 

It is just past 9:30 AM.  G just went to the gym with J.  I have two hours. I think I am going to back to sleep. 

Comments

[deja pseu]

Caretaking, the kind you're doing, is so demanding in more ways than people realize. I totally understand the pull of quiet time vs. sleep.

[La Belette Rouge]

Oh, sweet you, I am so sorry. I am sorry that it has been a hard time and that you and G haven't been sleeping well. I am happy to hear that there is space when you feel like yourself. It is lovely to hear that you have space for books, movies, dreams, goals, and more sleep. Did you get Three Dog on my recommendation? Ugh, I am sorry if it feels to hard. I cried a lot when I read it and yet I found a kind of peace and calm and hope in the book too.I hope you find that.

I have a friend who is a environmental psych teacher and she is having her students keep a night time journal. She is asking them to go out and be in the night sky. She also recommends this book.Let There Be Night: Testimony on Behalf of the Dark. I guess what I am saying is that I am starting to wonder if when I have insomnia if I am not craving something specific about the night time. Maybe my psyche needs more dark and less night. I don't know, this is me just thinking aloud.
p.s. I enjoy Legaly Blond too( secret pleasure)

[materfamilias]

Even though my guy is still v. healthy, mentally and physically, and even though he's a huge support every day, cooking, getting groceries, cleaning, transporting, having him home full-time since his retirement after years and years of spending our weeks cities apart is sometimes tough for me. I'm adjusting, learning to find ways to set boundaries for personal time and space (my issue, not his as he's not needy or demanding at all), but this weekend I decided to stay home rather than accompany him to the city, and I'm luxuriating in having the house to myself. Luxuriating, I tell you! So I can't imagine how you manage what you have to manage -- especially since it's got to be accompanied by such a sense of loss and then perhaps guilt (not that you should feel the latter, just that I suspect you do). That G was so high-functioning previously, and still shows regular vestiges of that -- his artist's eye, his appreciation of music, his attempts at articulating his own frustration and vulnerability about your relationship -- would make it difficult to move to respite care. But this might be what you need to do in order to sustain the support you want to keep giving him.
You have both my admiration and my sympathy. . .

[K-Line]

I've been wondering how things are going since your last post in which you described G's new symptoms... It's so hard to be a caretaker. Especially with no end in sight. I hope that you can find a good support service to give you more time to yourself. This is your life too and you deserve to feel rested and fulfilled.