Of Sleep and Long Nights by Konnie Enos

At the end of a long weekend, my older son needed to return to where he works in the northern part of the state. The fastest way to get him to where he needs to be is for my husband to drive him there. He doesn’t want my husband driving back alone so my younger son went along for the ride.

This means several things for me and my daughter.

For starters, we’d have to do the chores normally done by the now absent men. Or more like my daughter would because I’m not able to do them myself.

The next hurdle would be dogs wanting out in the middle of the night. My daughter hates anyone waking her up at night, but I simply do not hear them when I’m asleep.

We know this because my family members have mentioned the annoyance of dogs barking to get one door or another opened. As a rule, when I lay my head down at night I’m down for the count within half an hour. I would never call myself a heavy sleeper. I can wake up to alarms, but not necessarily any other sound from my phone. My bladder wakes me about three times a night. My family can be talking, particularly if they are in my room.

Dogs barking in the middle of the night?

I don’t hear it. I wouldn’t even know they were doing it if my family members hadn’t told me about how annoying it is. As a result, me and my daughter discussed how to manage me not hearing them wanting out of my bedroom. The result was that we left my bedroom door open.

Now, with my door open, my daughter turned off all my lights so that it wouldn’t bother her. Since she goes to bed at least a couple of hours before I do, it means I am sitting in the dark.

No problem. Sitting up doing stuff on my tech, which provides its own light, is something I do most nights.

Now the issue.

At some point, after my daughter had gone to bed, my son, sounding rather tired, called telling me they were where his brother is staying. As I am telling him to get some sleep, I hear my husband in the background saying that they are turning right back around and coming home.

Then the phone went dead. For whatever reason, I didn’t call them back to clarify my husband’s intentions for the evening. One could assume I spent the next several hours concerned about my tired husband driving eight hours back home in the middle of the night.

I did not.

I had known how my night would transpire as soon as I learned he was going to be gone overnight. For some reason, I don’t sleep well when my husband isn’t at least in our bedroom when I go to bed. More accurately, I don’t get tired enough to go to bed when he isn’t here.

Under those circumstances, I either stayed up all night or did not crash until three or four in the morning. Staying up late means I sleep in. Often not getting up until ten or eleven.

Now the problem is that I often wait to write my post until around six on Wednesday morning. Staying up late wasn’t going to be a good idea.

What happened?

It was well after two in the morning when I decided I was not going to get any sleep. I decided attempting to write my post would be an effective use of my time.

 Guess what happened within an hour of me starting to type.

Yeah, that’s right. I crashed.

I somehow managed to wake up with the sun even though that was something like two hours after I fell asleep. But, of course, that limited amount of sleep means I’m exhausted now.

My day can go one of two ways.

I could fall back to sleep. Melinda is the only one up and about, so the house isn’t noisy. I am also still groggy and periodically putting my head down for a few brief moments of rest. My body would love some more sleep.

The other option is that I can’t fall back to sleep because my husband isn’t here. Or the sun's up. Or my daughter is doing her chores. I did get about two hours of sleep. I’m not thoroughly exhausted anymore.

So, if my notifications on social media don’t go out at eight in the morning as usual, blame it on me falling back to sleep. I’m most of the way there already.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day. 

Of Restless Nights and Loud Alarms by Konnie Enos

 

Okay, my muse is not awake.

I don’t have a single thought as to what I should be writing. Not on this or any of my stories. Maybe it’s because I’m tired.

I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this before or not, but I tend to not sleep, or at least not well enough, or long enough when my husband isn’t home. Thankfully, that doesn’t happen very often.

However, it did this week.

It started when Tony found a job working on the other side of the state last week. When he got it none of us knew how he was even going to get there. Then there was the issue of where he was going to stay. But a week ago Sunday, he managed to get a ride up there and find a place to stay.

We had not expected to see him again for a while but this weekend he returned. My first thought was he’d quit after only one week or somehow managed to get fired.

No. He just came home for the weekend.

He assured me he had a ride back. So everything should have been fine.

Well, it turns out his ride back was flaky.

He was originally told they would pick him up at five p.m. By six we were all wondering what happened though Tony was able to get ahold of them and was told they were still packing up.

By eight we were all getting pretty concerned because he had to be at work early in the morning and at that point, we figured he might have to drive straight to work without getting some rest first.

The only solution was our car, which we clearly could not let him take since we needed it. Jerry ended up loading up so he could take Tony to work. Several hours drive north of here.

I was going to have to endure a night without my husband beside me.

Then I found out that Tropical Storm (hurricane) Hilary not only made landfall but its trajectory took it right through where Tony was working at about the same time they were driving in that area to make sure he got to work.

So besides not having my husband home, I had to worry about my husband and son driving through some severe weather.

I didn’t sleep much Sunday night but I assumed Jerry would drive right back, at least after he got some rest. Which gave me something else to worry about.

Could he get enough rest sleeping in the car? Or was he able to find a motel room for the night?

The answer was technically yes and no.

By the time they got there, they could find a room but the checkout would have been Monday morning, only about four hours after they arrived. Jerry didn’t want to pay for a full night's stay only to get four hours. So he got the room for Monday night.

This of course meant that he didn’t even head home until Tuesday morning.

Somehow, even knowing they were both fine and Tony managed to get to work on time, that was worse. I think I finally managed about three hours of sleep.

When Jerry got home he was still tired and wanted to crawl in bed early.

I was all for it. After all, I’d been functioning all day on very little sleep.

Nope.

Somehow I still went to bed at my normal hour and I only did so then because I knew I had to get my post this week up. Since I was tired and had no ideas for a post, I figured I’d better get some rest and hope I had an idea in the morning.

So I finally curled up next to my already snoring husband and went to sleep.

Then his alarm clock jolted pretty much everyone out of bed way too early this morning. Seriously, did you hear it? It was at like five a.m. Or maybe it was four. Way too early.

While I did have to get up earlier than normal so I’d have time to write this post, I didn’t have to be up that early. I managed to get some more rest until my alarm went off.

Then Melinda asked me about the way too loud alarm that went off in the middle of the night. That’s when we decided at least everyone in the house had to have heard it though two of that number probably hadn’t gone to bed yet since they are night owls. And here I’d thought that he’d gotten over the need for obnoxiously loud alarms to get him up in the morning.

At least it didn’t scare the beejeebies out of me like the first time he did that to me.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

Of Sleep and Word Flows by Konnie Enos

Have you ever tried to go to sleep and found all you did was toss for a while?

 You realize the sun’s been down for hours and only the night owls are moving about. It’s bedtime and you should be sleeping, not reading, doing sudoku or puzzles, or maybe even watching something. None of them help you shut off your brain so you can sleep, but I think the worst offender is writing.

You’re not sleeping if you’re thinking about the next word, sentence, or scene. You’re brain is going a million miles a minute. It’s those times when attempting to sleep will just have you tossing for hours getting little to no actual rest.

I’m sure sleepless nights happen to everyone, but you can’t go forever without sleep.

What do you do when you’ve been up half the night, or longer, and now you need sleep?

When I was younger, I’d just hide in my bedroom and hope the household noises didn’t disturb me. It doesn’t work anymore, because all the ruckus of several animals and humans moving about their day is sure to disrupt any attempts to sleep. Either that or the sun is a deterrent.

Recently, I had places to go the next day but I could not get to sleep. I sat up all night, doing little of nothing, but otherwise occupying my time until morning. Just as the sun was coming up I forced myself to go to bed but sleep never really came.

Yes, I got comfortable and closed my eyes. And no, I never managed to sleep. My brain just never fully shut off. Between the bright light and others talking, I finally gave up after only a few hours. Needless to say, I went to bed much earlier that night.

Then there are other times when I think I’m simply not going to get tired enough to sleep and decide to write something, only to fall asleep in the middle of typing a word. And no matter how hard you try when you get back to it, it’s impossible to remember what you were trying to say.

I have one story that I got interrupted on in the middle of a word and I still have not been able to get my train of thought back since. It’s been years.

I can also remember times when getting some rest or stopping for any other activity didn’t stem the flow of words for days, even weeks. Days when you spend nearly every waking moment typing the words onto the page, and when you’re not typing you’re thinking about the next word, sentence, or scene, never losing your train of thought even when interrupted.

The last time that happened to me, my one story turned into five.

Sometimes the lack of adequate sleep conspires against you to stem the flow of words while others, you have to fight to stay awake long enough to keep up with the flow.

The only constant about sleepless nights is you end up dragging, your head aching and your body fighting to be in a more comfortable position, so rest can be obtained.

I don’t know about anybody else but those times when it happens too frequently are the worst. You barely recover from one sleepless night and find yourself stuck in another one before you fully recover, making the whole experience much worse. This happens enough and soon it’s obvious you’re not getting enough sleep to everyone around you.

What brought this train of thought on?

One, some of my recent sleepless nights. Two, I’m working on some scenes to show one side character’s extreme tiredness. So, yes, I’m thinking about all the reasons that might cause it but also what signs and symptoms your friends and family might see.

How long can you keep going without others noticing?

How soon do those close to you start to worry?

Though one thing I’ve realized is that in a story, you have to pinpoint what is causing it. In real life, sometimes it can be harder to define.

True. Most of the time you know.

That night when you are just too interested in reading that really good book or binge-watching that great show. Or maybe concern about a family, or all those things you need to do. Or it just might be the inability to get comfortable and all the reasons that might occur.

Or just a combination of several factors.

Last night started with attempting to write about that sleepless character. Then it segued onto fixing some errors in the story, which required backtracking. When I gave up, I tried to write this post. Tried being the operative word.

Oh well. Maybe I can sneak in a nap later.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.

 

Of Packed Schedules and Sleep-Inducing Pills by Konnie Enos

 Going back to school to get my bachelor’s degree is proving to be something of a challenge.

Every other time I’ve enrolled in higher education, I took 12 credits, maybe 13, per semester. This semester I have 14 credits. This equates to 14 hours of classes per week. So, a part-time job.

Only it’s not 14 hours because you’ll have to compute the amount of time that you’ll need to get all the homework done. The general rule is 3 to 4 hours a week per credit, 14 times three is 42. Increase that to four and it’s 56 hours a week. Which means I’m spending seven to nine hours a day, six days a week on schoolwork.

Is it any wonder I’m having difficulty keeping up with my other responsibilities? Like writing my post regularly. Worse still, about half my weekly assignments are due on Wednesday. (Please note which day my post goes up.) Then the rest are due on Saturday.

Yes, I work ahead as much as possible, but I still end up with plenty due on both days.

What brought on all this introspection about the number of hours I’m putting in?

I realized that the minimum number of credits I had left to do to complete my degree is 15. Only that last credit is an internship, one in which I’ll have to have a job or internship of at least 15 hours a week. Fifteen plus 42 is 57 while 56 plus 15 is 71, 10-to-12-hour days, six days a week. I wonder how much I’d be able to get done then.

With that in mind, I investigated extending my college experience at least one more semester. Changing my last semester to the Summer semester sounded the easiest but there was one hitch. Of the six classes I have left, only one of them is offered over the Summer semester. Fortunately, that’s the internship.

Okay, so take another 14-credit semester then finish off with my internship over the short summer semester. I took the time to investigate what exactly I had to do to set up the internship class.

I’ll have to find at least a part-time job to use for my internship. So instead of putting it off until I graduate, I need to find a job now.

Fun.

Not.

So now I’m adding locating jobs and submitting applications to them into my already busy schedule.

What else could possibly make things more stressful for me?

Apparently, I already asked that.

How do I know?

Saturday night I noticed my left lower lid was sore to the touch and swelling. The last time I had issues with swelling in my eyelid it affected my vision. When it got so bad I couldn’t even read the street signs, I went for help. I cleared up the swelling, but not my vision. Turned out I needed cataract surgery. With it swelling again I thought of all the possible causes, pink eye being the first one on my mind.

I had Jerry take me to a Quick Care Monday morning, only to discover that yet one more medical provider in this whole valley has no clue how to deal with my primary insurance. For me, getting medical care is being more and more difficult because there aren’t many places around here that even know what ChampVA is, and they either don’t take it, or they stop taking it for whatever reason. The only quick cares around here I haven’t tried don’t take my secondary insurance.

My only other option for urgent care is the ER.

Fortunately, there is a stand-alone ER nearby that isn’t generally swamped.

A couple of hours later they’re offering me several medications for my first dose and prescriptions to take home and continue treatment. One of those medicines was to help decrease the swelling. A side effect of said medicine is sleep.

It’s Monday.

I have a bunch of reading to do to complete all my assignments due on Wednesday. Every time I attempted to read my textbook (boring enough in its own right) I zonked out. By the end of the day, I’d managed maybe half of the reading I needed to do.

The first thing to do was not plan on taking that medicine in the morning.

The second thing, let my teachers know I may have issues getting done with my homework this week.

Okay, now I’ve got things back under control.

Right up until about a half-hour after I took my medicine last night. You know about the time I started dozing off and realized I still had this post to write. So, if it’s disjointed or rambling, blame it on the pills.

Smile. Make the day a brighter day.