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Sunday, January 23, 2011

I know you can't catch up on lost sleep but I'd like to try

On the weekends when I do my part time secretary gig I get all stressed out over Sunday. Sunday is my only day off and I get myself into a dither over it. Yeah, I know-- talk about needing to learn to relax.

Here's the thought process: there are so many things I want to do and there's not enough time in a day. I want to just read, watch movies, maybe get dressed and hang at my favorite coffee shop for a change of atmosphere and to be left alone- sometimes I like my alone time. I feel like I should just relax and a big part of me wants to do nothing more than relax and lay around but then I think about cleaning the garage, doing laundry, grocery shopping, finish my book club book, cleaning my room, gathering tax papers, responding to emails, paying bills... I think of all the things I SHOULD be doing. I argue with myself that I worked all week and almost all weekend so I deserve a day to just hang out. Then I look at the list of crap I should do.

What will probably happen is that I'll do the shopping, get my tax papers together and I'll do laundry while just hanging out here at the house and reading or watching Netflix. I guess it's a happy medium. I keep pushing the big chores to the back of my mind.

I think it's the thought that I worked 12 of the 13 days. The idea of that makes me tired.

I was telling Daddy-O that when I work on the weekend my Saturday mornings are shot. I always think I won't set my alarm because I usually can't sleep much past 8:30 am on a weekend. But for the last 4 or 5 Saturdays, I've gotten up between 11am and noon. I feel like I sleep the sleep of the dead. I think it's because I go a million miles an hour during the week and then the weekend gets here and I mentally crash.

I remember a few weekends when I lived in the Wild West where Friday night would roll around and I would make no plans. I get some groceries and movies on my way home from school and then put on my jammies around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I would often crash by 8pm and sleep until nearly noon on Saturday. I would just lay on the couch and watch movies and nap all day Saturday. I wouldn't even get dressed or shower and I would usually go to bed around 9pm and sleep all night. On Sunday I would finally take a shower late in the afternoon or early evening and put on another pair of clean jammies. I remember the re-charging of the battery feeling of those weekends. I didn't do that often- I didn't need to- but when I did I was just a big slug, but come Monday morning, I was ready to dance back into the classroom and impart learning!

I'm wondering if my ability to crash on a Saturday morning and sleep until noon is a much shorter version of "re-charging my battery"? My body and mind finally meet up and realize I need to sleep for one long unbroken period of time?

Here it is, Sunday morning at 9:40am and I'm awake and blogging. I've been up for about an hour. No coffee or shower yet, but I've still been up for an hour. And after I hit 'publish' here I'll be taking care of those. Then I'll get the laundry going. And at least I'll be dressed and ready to go when I feel like tackling the grocery shopping.

And then I'll sit in front of the fire and read. Even if it's just for a little bit.

Maggie

2 comments:

Bragger said...

Here's my advice - Every Sunday, pick one HAVE TO thing and work on that. But set a time limit. Then pick one WANT TO thing and spend the rest of the day doing that.

I know, easy for me to say.....

Curley said...

I just wish you could tell me how you sleep so many hours straight. After 4-5 hrs I'm awake and then tired all the rest of the day. I do laundry and watch movies at same time or read. You just have to pause the movie or put the book down when a load is done then go back to it.