Perpetual Ruminations

Saturday

It's late again! For me, though, it's just the normal time to come in and write a little. Today was another work day, as is tomorrow. In fact, every weekend is just another two days of work. The only difference is Saturday is busier and I have to work two hours longer and don't get to leave until one in the afternoon. Sunday is different as well, since I don't have to be there until eight in the morning instead of five. Of course, I don't get done until two in the afternoon, but it's still nice to sleep in.

Some of this has changed now, since I set Saturday up as a three shift day instead of two as it was. That means I got done today at ten-thirty instead of one. But, I had to go over a few things with the afternoon guard; some training and paperwork. I got done at twelve-thirty instead.

Then, I found a message on my phone, so I had to stop and get some trash bags before coming home. That didn't take very long, and I was soon on my half hour drive home. Upon arriving at home, I talked to Rhonda while we had a sandwich for lunch, then we took an hour nap.

This is something I want to get away from, as it's becoming habit for me now. Getting up at three in the morning makes it difficult not to take an afternoon nap, though. As a result of the nap, however, I find myself up until ten, eleven, or even midnight. Then it's up again at three and by noon I'm so tired I need a nap. As you can see, I'm going in circles. The solution is, skip the nap, get good and tired so I can get to bed by eight in the evening, then get up at three with enough sleep so that I don't need a nap.

Simple, right? No. But, with a couple of days off, I should be able to sleep in a little, but still get up by five or six. Then, skip my habitual nap and go to bed earlier. I can do this for both my days off, then on the next work day I will get up at three, as is normal. After work, however, I will be more accustom to not napping and manage to skip my normal afternoon nap. Of course, I will be tired, but that should ensure I will be able to sleep by eight, and then up again the next morning. With a little repetition I should be able to reforge my habits and replace the nap with getting to bed.

Besides giving me more usable time, I will be more rested and make better use of that time. See, the naps don't work very well. First of all, I have not ever been much of a napper, even as a young child. I do now out of necessity; twenty four hours or about that is just not enough for a person to function on, and napping becomes mandated by the lack of nightly sleep. Also, I get home and don't get going on anything, I'm too tired. So, I nap instead, and my hour nap turns into two or more hours, but I still don't wake feeling refreshed.

By now it's late afternoon or evening, and that makes it difficult to get motivated. There's supper to cook and eat, then it's nice to relax for a while before turning in, so I can sleep better at night. The napping does little to recharge me on my need for sleep, as I stated. I plan for an hour, but it takes a while to get to sleep, it's too light to sleep heavy, there's too much noise to stay sleeping, and it seems the phone rings and I have to jump up to see if it's work. So, instead of a nice hour of sleep, I have an hour nap and maybe doze off a few times before the alarm goes off.

Also, even on the occasion I do sleep sound, I find myself waking to run to the bathroom. Sure, I take a few minutes to do my business, then it's back into bed and hopefully right back to sleep. But, it's still interrupted and does not replenish me like sound uninterrupted sleep would. This results in me feeling groggy and out of it when I do get up, so I tend not to get much done. For some strange reason, though, about this time of night, I find myself catching my second wind, so to speak.

Around nine at night my time, I start to feel some energy, motivation, and desire to get things going. Of course, this gets my mind going even if I don't follow through. Then, I go to bed, snuggle up to a very pretty lady and fall right to sleep. Not! No I doze off and then wake with this weird stuff running in my head; I can't shut it off. I try and focus on something pleasant and soon enough I'm falling into a nice slumber, but then something else invades my mind and I'm awake again, thinking about another problem or situation, or even course of action.

I know that a lot of this is do to not getting enough sleep, and not getting it in one st right through stretch. I know what I need to do, I just find myself sabotaging my plans and if I don't, something comes up and someone or something else does. Perhaps that will be my weekly goal next week, to get my ass to bed on time and skip the afternoon naps.

For now, it's getting late and I'm only going to sabotage myself again if I don't close this and get to bed. It's ten to ten here, and I have to be up at six tomorrow. If I get this done and get to bed, I can get a full nights sleep and start the week right on target. Well, that's if I can sleep for eight hours straight. It's been so long I may just wake up after four to six as is normal for me. Oh well, if Ido I can always snuggle up to that snugly lady and go back to sleep. If that fails, I may just see you all early tomorrow morning.