Category Archives: sleep

All Good Things This Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

Nothing like a good night’s sleep. I was asleep by 9:30, and slept straight through until 5:45 this morning. My cough is gone, I feel rested for the first time in 2 days. It’s awesome, really. I skipped my massage yesterday, and my Veterans Art Center meeting. You know I was tired if I didn’t get the massage, lol. I was afraid if I wasn’t coughing my brains out on her table, I’d fall asleep there, lol. Better not to go, than be the client from hell.

I am so excited to see my son. OMG, 9 months is too long not to see your child, even though we talk every day. Don’t want to go that long again! We will have such a good time! The baseball game, maybe go kayaking, go to my sisters house, the beach….so much to show him and do with him. Maybe I can take him to open mic night! I plan to go out there this summer, and we’ve talked about meeting in CT too at some point, because we both miss our friends there.

The weather here is going to be around 80° all week, I think that will be the norm from now on. 80° is my favorite temperature. Hot, but not too hot. The humidity is very low this time of year. A couple more months and it will be hot and sticky, but right now, it’s perfect. Hot and sticky is a trade off for not having to deal with 10° and piles of snow, and that’s a good trade in my book any day!

Tonight I’m going to make that dinner for L that I kept telling him I’d keep warm while he was gone. Looking very forward to that. I have a few things to go get this morning for it. We should have a good time, we laugh a lot together.

I am so grateful this morning, for the way my life has turned out, and for the people who are in it. Feeling very blessed, as always. Love and light to all.

Not An Effortless Morning

Posted on by learning to live like water

Writing can be difficult. At times. At others, the words flow onto the page effortlessly. We all know this. I love the effortless times. I think it’s probably when my work is at it’s best, when nothing blocks the flow from my heart to my head to the page. Those are usually the poetry days.

This morning is not one of those effortless times. I had a difficult sleep last night, though I was exhausted. I finally got up and wrote 3 different posts, trying to clear my head. It worked somewhat. I fell asleep after. I got up this morning and re-read what I’d written with my eyes closed last night. Two of them got filed in “Unpublished”. One got discarded, the last one, when I finally became too tired to make any sense at all.

I had a wonderful time last night. And I talked to L, no matter very briefly. A friend called me just as I went to bed to tell me the evening was live-streamed on FB. I told her I’d look in the morning, but I couldn’t find it this morning.

The girls are coming over Sunday to read my friends play. I only have to provide some guacamole, lol, and a place to sit.

My sister is coming this morning with her step-daughter. I have a fundraiser tonight at a restaurant in St. Pete. I’m almost out of half and half for my coffee, so I need to get some at some point today or I will be really upset tomorrow morning, lol.

I want to talk to L. More. I think I will call him this morning. Because when he calls I will be with my sister or at the fundraiser and I want to be able to talk, privately. No distractions.

If I’m honest, which I try to be even though it’s uncomfortable at times, I will admit that the nameless one interjected himself too, in my thoughts. I wish I could say that I only remembered the good things, but with him, every good thing had two or three bad ones, and I just wonder why the hell I held on so long. Then I get into the connection that can’t be broken, or whatever it is, and know I have to find a way to ignore it, if I want to fully move on. He is still blocked, and apparently has not figured out how to find my phone number, or just didn’t/doesn’t bother, because there are no blocked voice mails. That’s a good thing, really. Blocking him is my way of trying to break a connection that seems to have a life of its own, but has, in the end, never brought me anything but heartache and sadness, and I just want to move away from it.

I know at some point with L, if it proceeds as I expect it to, we will discuss the nameless one, and what will I say? I loved him, it was misplaced, but I did, and now I don’t? How will I explain the repetition over and over? Can I tell the story without too much detail? I will try. I suppose a lot of it would be TMI for L anyway. He will just want to know that I am past it. That’s what I want to know too, lol.

My ex is much easier for me to deal with. I was out of love, fully and finally, when I left the marriage. There are no left-over emotions, and certainly not a connection that continues despite the time and distance.

All this stuff was in my head last night. I suppose I was stimulated, so had a difficult time just settling off to sleep. I hopped from one thought to the other. I changed the meditation music I always play. I read, I wrote. I’m tired today, and I have a busy day.

Funny as I started writing this, I couldn’t put two coherent thoughts together, and now that I have written down all my incoherent thoughts, I feel much better, lol. I actually thought I should maybe stop writing for a week, and see what happened. But I love to write, and it keeps me sane, and I’m committed to it. So here I am sharing my sometimes stupid, sometimes profound, very ordinary thoughts again. My sister apologized for not reading my blog, and I said, “you don’t have to read it, it’s really boring for the most part.” Because it is, these blogs about my life where I’m just trying to glean some lesson from my experiences. Sometimes my poetry is worth reading I think. I get a lot more views when I write a haiku or a poem than when I do this….an essay on why I couldn’t sleep, lol.

But I’m grateful for all of you who do read it, and comment. It gives me a wider perspective, and often more profound insight. In the end, I feel blessed, always. For all of it.

Love and light to everyone.

The Joy of Being Able to Sleep

Posted on by learning to live like water

I still at times am in disbelief that I now sleep so well. To awaken refreshed, after 8 hours of sleep, good sound sleep, not induced by anything but my own tiredness. It’s a relaxed sleep, a happy sleep. For more than a decade, I have gone to bed exhausted and not slept through the night.

When I first got settled in here, I found myself taking naps. Being unbelievably tired in the middle of the day. I couldn’t understand it. A few short weeks before, I’d been working 10 hours a day, taking care of my big house, doing the laundry and grocery shopping, and cooking and cleaning, and still managing time still with my friends. Not to mention the emotional drama I kept going through, stuck in a cycle like a broken record. A nap was a foreign idea to me.

Suddenly I was napping. I have since stopped. I really don’t need one now. And I don’t like to take them, being the day person I am. I have things to do during daylight hours, and want to get them done. But I think for awhile I had to take naps because there was just so much cumulative tiredness in me. I had been getting by on 5 or 6 hours of sleep a night for so long, and suddenly, I didn’t have to any more. I remember asking myself how a person could sleep so much.

Now I have a small house, just the perfect size for me. I have no emotional drama. I don’t have to go to work. I am happy when I go to bed, content. And so, I sleep most nights. I am so grateful.

Not to say there aren’t those nights when I wake up at 1 AM and my mind begins to go where it will go and I have a hard time getting back to sleep. But it doesn’t make me angry any longer, which always made it even harder to go to sleep. Now I just deal with it, because I don’t have to be anywhere in the morning. I don’t have to go to work and be functional. Sometimes I get up and write, which seems to cure it the best. To just record my stream of consciousness, and what was on my mind. I rarely publish what I write in the wee hours, lol. I usually leave it til morning, to see how I feel, since writing in the dark with my eyes closed is probably not the best way to prepare something for publication. And often I find that I don’t want to publish what I wrote, but I save it. I mark it “unpublished”.

I know I am very blessed to be in a position to live like this. It helps that I am not freezing, in February. It helps that its in the 60’s at night and high 70’s or low 80’s in the day, and the sun shines 90% of the time. It helps that my son calls me every day, and we are as involved in each other’s lives as we ever were. It helps that he’s doing so well, that I have no worries about him. It helps that I have friends here, and am making more friends. It helps that I met L, and that there may be something growing from that, though the jury is still out on that one. I am still happy to know that my interest can be piqued in a man, in every way.

So, sleep….I am so happy to know I can sleep. I never thought I’d be able to say I’m a good sleeper again. But I am.

Love and light to you. And a good night’s sleep too.

Scammers, Odds and Ends

Posted on by learning to live like water

Yesterday I said I wasn’t going to write more about these guys I’m meeting. But I will write about the ones who I don’t meet that I think are scammers or are just living in an alternate reality.

For instance, I got this this morning.

“Hi good morning how are you doing…i do really like your profile and i will like to get to know more about you..why don’t you check my profile and tell me what you think…anyway you take good care of your self there for me and have a nice day enjoy your Christmas Bruno”

This morning. He missed Christmas. Well..he’s a scammer. “i will like to get to know more about you” instead of “i would like to get to know more about you” is such a dead give away. And of course this message comes from a man with one pic up, a pic of a very handsome guy.

I’ve toyed with answering him. “You have a nice Christmas too, but it’s a pretty long wait, don’t you think?” Like roughly 350 days. But I won’t, I don’t respond to people I can ID as a scammer right from the start.

I have had 3 scammers all with names that end in “-taco”. With a different unintelligible first part of their name. But, it’s kind of a dead giveaway isn’t it. They all “will like to get to know more about” me. LOL. As soon as they get back to the States.

I have had messages from 4 different men, in about the last week, all of whom have the same profile. Exactly the same, word for word. After the 2nd one I started reporting them for fake profiles. That’s on a paid dating site. I gotta wonder what the scam is, if they’re willing to pay to scam you. I don’t wonder enough to try to find out though,lol. I’ve been scammed enough.

In other news, I actually slept 8 hours last night. Finally. I’m guessing the not sleeping while corresponding with Tom the Scammer was my body’s way of letting me know something was really not right about that whole thing. It is always so freeing to get the truth and set yourself free.

I guess it wasn’t Scott reading 100 posts in an hour yesterday. At least if it was, it didn’t spur him to leave me any vicious voice mails. I suppose it could have been Betty, but if it was, I would still have expected a nasty voice mail from him, complaining about something I’d written. Pretty soon I’ll be able to let go of that hypervigilance thing I think. Because I’m beginning to realize on a really deep level that I don’t have to allow whatever energy he spews into my life again, and that it’s not that hard. I can’t get an email from him, and I don’t have to listen to a voice mail. I’m hopeful that that little read-fest was a new reader, which is cool. I like that.

Looking forward to the day today. It’s going to be much warmer than yesterday, close to 70. And warmer each day this week, which is really nice because it will be nice, high 70’s when my two friends from high school get here! We’re going to have so much fun! My handyman is coming tomorrow night to retrieve the screw out of the curtain rod bracket. LOL. But maybe I’ll get the curtains hung before my friends get here. That would be nice!!

Love and light everyone.

Still Pinching Myself

Posted on by learning to live like water

I kept getting message from UforMe69, all of which I ignored. Does he really attract women with that name? I suppose there’s someone for everyone, lol. The last one was “I’d really like to have a chat with you. Gabby.” I mean, wow. I haven’t answered any of your dozen messages. Do you think I’m interested? Apparently, lol. So I sent him back a message and said, “I’m sorry Gabby. I’m just not interested.” He thanked me and said let him know if I ever changed my mind.

Chances are slim to none on that.

Geezus. Another guy sends me 3 messages, he’s from Minnesota. ????

I did actually hear from the three guys I like, so that was good.

Yesterday I went to Walmart to grocery shop, and the main impetus behind it was I was almost out of coffee. I spent $160. Guess what I didn’t buy? Yes, coffee. Duh. I had enough for this morning. I had to take my friend Beth to the county health department for a dr. appt. early this morning, so after that I stopped and got the coffee.

Now having my second cup, feeling happy. There’s a little spring in my step. And why not? It’s 63°. After a thick morning fog burned off it is flawlessly sunny. My sister is coming. The artwalk is tonight. I had a wonderful night last night. I have a few things to do today, but it won’t be a hard day. I’m looking forward to meeting a couple of these men next week. Or soon, anyway. Oh, and the scale said I lost another lb! Trying to get the last 10 lbs off. So much easier, when life is stress-free.

I didn’t sleep well, as usual last night, but slept enough. I think I got keyed up from the wonderful evening at Mangia’s. One of my friends wanted me to go with her to the American Legion and sing karaoke after open mic last night. I said, no…I’m sorry…going to bed…. Definitely not a night owl. Unless of course, I’ve slept for a few hours and wake up at 1 or 2 AM. Then I’m a night owl. I was up writing at 2:45 am. UGH. Then slept til 7:30.

Well another boring update. Still pinching myself, that this is my life. 🙂

Love and light….

Sleepless in Florida

Posted on by learning to live like water

I ended my 4 or 5 night streak of good sleep last night. My son began texting me at 11:30 last night that his car’s valve cover gasket is leaking. His service engine light had just come on. It will cost $500 to fix.

11:30 is way past my bedtime, I was in bed, and falling asleep. I was up kinda late, because I went to open mic, and then came home and wrote for awhile to unwind. After texting back and forth for awhile, I told him to call me this morning and we’ll talk about it. I went back to sleep for 2 more hours, and then woke up and was wide awake. So, I do what many of us do, I got up, got on the computer and wrote some more, to empty my head. Then at 3:30 went back to bed, took a half an Ambien and fell asleep til 8. Or so.

Now my sleep schedule will be messed up. But really, does it matter, LOL. I’m retired. I don’t have to be anywhere at any time, except at the doctor today at 1:30 for a therapy treatment. Which is a back massage……

Had a good time last night at open mic, as always. Both of my good friends who go with me were sick, so I went alone, but knew I could hang out with my other friends. My friend P welcomed me with a hug, and walked me to my car at the end of the night. What a good guy.

A man I’ve been messaging with has expressed a wish to go to open mic with me. He plays guitar and sings and also is a boater/sport fisherman. He said he could play a Buffett song. That crowd would love Buffett. So who knows, maybe. I like him a lot. He’s a sweet man, so far.

I splurged and bought myself a leaf blower that also vacuums leaves to deal with the leaves from the banyan tree, which perpetually are falling off. Much easier to blow them than to try to rake them. I also bought a push broom and a rake. Push broom is to allow me to scrub my deck.

I guess it’s time to take the Christmas tree down. I am usually anxious by about this time, to get the house back to normal. Even though, my house has not been “normal” really. I wish I had everything in it’s place but I still don’t. I need to though. My friends from high school will be here in 2 weeks, and I need it better organized than what it is now, since they are all staying here one night as we try to recreate our high school days. But, it will be the night of open mic, so we won’t be hanging here all night, which is something I’m glad about.

It’s cool here this morning, 51 when I woke up. The house was cool. But the sun is out brightly though the high will only be 61. I love living in a place where “cold” is 60. LOL. It’s been snowing up north in my old home. Not missing it at all.

Love and light everyone.

Reconnecting

Posted on by learning to live like water

I had a very hard time getting to sleep last night. I was up at midnight, writing. I have heard wakefulness is a curse of many writers. It seems to be mine lately, for sure. I wrote, some things that I won’t ever publish, just trying to express whatever it was that was stuck inside and trying to get out.  Leaning in, as Brene Brown advises, to the discomfort. Often that helps, just to write out whatever comes to mind, without a whole lot of worry about the mechanics. But still, as I sat on the couch, I was wide awake.

Saved on my computer is a short meditation, “The Great Bell Chant (The End to Suffering)”. ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1ZwaEzMtJw ) . It has always given me some peace to watch this video, or simply to listen to it. I put it on, and after the first minute, closed my eyes. It isn’t too long, about 7 or 8 minutes. It is the first thing that helped me to begin to relax, and center myself.

When it ended I clicked on another suggestion on Youtube, for an Om Chant. It said it was 3 hours, but I thought, just let me listen for a few minutes, maybe it will clear my mind, remembering years ago a meditation group in which we listened to chanting for at least an hour, in the dark, and how I was always able to somehow shut down the monkey mind in my head. This video was simply a recording of Buddhist monks chanting OM, over and over again. Deep resonant voices. Listening to them, focusing in on them, my eyes finally began to close, and restfulness finally came to me. I found the same video on my phone, went to bed, and put it on. It was supposed to play for 3 hours. I don’t know if it did, lol, because finally I fell asleep, and slept until about 6:30. Only about 5 hours of sleep, but enough, especially for someone who’s retired, lol.

A few times in the last couple of days I’ve seen the term “metta” associated with Buddhism. Not because I was in particular reading or looking for information on Buddhism. The word just showed up, on FB, in my email newsletters. So this morning I googled it, and found a fascinating (to me) article on what it is, and how it’s practiced. ( http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/facets_of_metta.php ) It’s one of the 4 sublime states of Buddhism that leads to enlightenment. It kind of goes along with my post about unconditional love, but extends that love to oneself equally with extending it to others. You have to make yourself happy first, basically. And in serving others, you will find you make yourself happy. But, you can’t defer to others wishes if doing so makes you unhappy.

I slept well at my sisters, because I was helping her, and her friends, and it made me very happy to be there. I came home, to my little house that I love, but it was empty, devoid of that human connection, or so I thought. But connections remain, there is no space or time in regards to a connection. In focusing in on the OM meditation, I reconnected to myself, which reconnected me to all in a loving way. And I went to sleep.

And so the journey continues. Love and light.

Sleep and Trust

Posted on by learning to live like water

sleep and trust

For years I was such a bad sleeper. I guess that’s normal, living with a sociopath whose purpose in life was to create chaos in yours, and your sons. Never knowing what you might wake up to. Wondering if the earth would tilt on its axis by morning. I took over the counter sleep aids for years on end. Never went to bed without some sort of help, and often, they didn’t help. I’ve taken 4 Tylenol PM and not gone to sleep.

I often wonder if I did any damage to my body all those years. I figure not sleeping probably would have done more.

Since I moved out of that house, it’s been rare that I take anything. It took some time to wean myself off of the fear of not sleeping. I wasn’t physically addicted to the sleep aids, but I had a lot of fear of not sleeping at all, and having to go to work and be functional the next day. Now, I know if I don’t sleep one night, I will sleep the next. So I don’t generally take them.

Last summer though, when the carpal tunnel was really bad, I got prescription Ambien which helped me to sleep through some of the pain. That particular ailment gives you the most pain when you are sleeping. I’d have to get up multiple times during the night to run my hand under warm water, to relieve the throbbing. The Ambien got it down to just once usually.

As soon as I was through the surgery and the carpal tunnel was no longer an issue, I found out about Betty Boop. Which sent me into another tailspin, in which heartbreak combines with trust issues, mostly, not trusting myself. After all, there were myriad flags flying, and I chose to believe the obvious lies I was being told, and not to see the truth that had been slapping me in the face all summer trying to wake me up.

If you follow my blog, you know that relationship did not end there. You know that he tried to keep me in the periphery of his life, that he could not let me go, even though he’d chosen her. He continued to break my heart on a regular basis until really, about 6 weeks ago, when he asked to come see me after leaving me about a dozen voice mails and I finally talked to him and said, no. No, we aren’t going there again.

I reclaimed myself.

I have not talked to him since. I had some short communications with Betty Boop, but then blocked her so I won’t even see another email from her. She made up a lie, for her own benefit, telling him I’d done something I had not done. It wasn’t a big thing, but it just doesn’t sit well with me. She and he are welcome to play all the games they want, and feed each other the lies they need to hear, but leave me out of it. I’m not angry, I just can’t get drawn into that childish adolescent stuff again.

I realized last night that when I called him and left a voice mail just telling him that it was a lie, I’d unblocked him, and had not reblocked him. I reblocked him again last night. Again, not because I’m angry. Not because I have any bad feelings at all for him. But because I am moving on, I don’t want to be part of that little drama any longer. He loves the triangulation. He’ll have to find another 3rd leg to make her jealous with.

The point is….after I did it, I slept a solid 7 hours. I’ve done that a lot lately. Even with all the agita over the hot water heater, and trying to find a mover, and trying to train 2 people at work, I’ve been able to sleep. Because none of it is emotional. None of it makes me question who I am. I’m beginning to trust myself again.

Today I woke refreshed from a good night’s sleep. There is a very gentle rain falling outside, so I can’t sit out there, but I opened the slider to my deck to let the fresh air in, and listen to the peace of it. The stillness.

I am beginning to absorb, assimilate, that my dream of moving to Florida and retiring is manifesting. I guess there is always a ying yang with it, and the yang to that ying is that my son won’t be with me any longer. I know it’s time for him to fly on his own, I know he will love Colorado. I know it’s an adventure for him. I know I’ll still talk to him every day, and that our bond can never be broken.

But God, I will miss his chaotic energy in my life, his youthful exuberance, the plethora of friends and young people constantly running through my house.

I’ll get through it. I’m trying to just look forward to driving cross country with him. That will be a wonderful way to say goodbye to our old life.

I’ll keep the Ambien by my bed, for those few nights when it’s hard.

The rest of the time, I’ll just sleep. I’ll have my life back, completely. There will be no triggers down there to remind me of what I thought I had, and didn’t, nothing to remind me of all the pain I endured. I will just enjoy the fruits of my work to heal, and continue that process in my “Avalon”. My place of healing and new beginnings.

Love and light, all.

Sleep, sweet sleep. Ahhhh.

Posted on by learning to live like water

sweet-sleep-wm

I can’t believe how well I’ve been sleeping.  Except for the night I went out dancing and drank a little too much.  But I’ve been getting 7 hours of good sleep every night, with no problem.

To me, the ability to sleep well is such an indicator of healing.  For months after and during all the drama with S, I was taking 10 mg of Ambien every night to get 5 or 6 hours of sleep, and it didn’t always work.  Now, I just go to sleep within minutes of turning my light out at night.  It shows me, more than anything, how much I have let go, forgiven, moved on.  It’s also helpful to know that I still have measures in place so that I can’t hear from, or get involved in any drama with, him or her.  The energy connection is still there, like the ringing in my ears (that I have because I am mostly deaf in one ear) but I am now able to just tune it out.  Never thought I could do that, but I can.

I messaged the Florida realtor last night, and told her I accepted the counter offer. The seller is going to hook up the gas to the stove/oven and to the hot water heater, which will cost her.  Plus she’s going to upgrade the electric at the same time.  So, I agreed that I’d meet her half way as she asked, between my original offer and my new offer.  I told the realtor, let’s get this done, I don’t want to fool around with it any more.

My house here won’t sell for what I’d hoped.  More than I bought it for but not enough to recoup all my money after I pay the realtor and state conveyance tax, which is 1% of the sale price.  But I’ll still be ok, there will still be enough there to do what I planned.

Moving on down the road.  And into the shower, gotta go to work.  🙂

Love and light.

 

 

Sleeping Under My Own Power

Posted on by learning to live like water

Before-I-Sleep

I have discovered a secret to sleeping well, I think.  I suppose it’s not a secret, and well-known by people more enlightened than me.  I’m not, historically a good sleeper.  I used to be, when I was much younger, until I spent years in an abusive marriage.  Being hypervigilant every minute is not good for sleep.

The last few nights I’ve had trouble getting to sleep, or staying asleep.  I’ve resorted to a low dose Ambien a couple times, because I have to have at least 5 hours of sleep to be functional at work for 9 hours.  6 or 7 is better, but 5 is the minimum.  I don’t like doing that, though, and don’t want it to be the habit it was for 6 months, when I had carpal tunnel, and after, when S did his thing to blow my world apart.

Last night, when I shut my light off, I snuggled under my comforter, and began to recite a list of things I was grateful for.  Actually saying, thank you thank you for things like, my warm bed.  My warm house.  Food in my pantry.  My son in his space.  My upcoming trip to Florida.  My sweet cat.  The ability to pay for the muffler that I just had put on the car.  My friends.  That I have two wonderful sisters.  That I had such loving parents.

On and on.

And I slept well, and easily. When I woke at 12:45, I did the same thing, and fell back to sleep easily.  Same when I woke around 3:30

Another benefit was that I woke this morning in a good mood.  I actually woke in a state of happiness, and that’s been a long time coming.  It’s so lovely to wake up and look forward to the day, not to wish I could just stay under the covers for 3 more hours.

Tonight I have gongs again.  Gongs and crystal bowls and drums and bells, I am looking so forward to it.  Always.  It always seems like perfect timing.  Such a good place, a good way, to let go of anything that no longer serves.  If you follow my blog, you know I have plenty of that!

So here’s to letting go of the stuff that keeps us up, and being grateful for the things that make our lives beautiful!  Love and light, all.