Body Tired

I am so tired. I have that kind of tired that I have only really experienced when I was pregnant and that’s definitely not the case now. It is an all-pervading body tired that seeps from my toes, crawls up my legs, swells my hands, locks my shoulders and neck and clogs any brain cells I thought I may have still had left. It pervades every aspect of what I’m doing. But it’s not a sleepy tired, it’s a dysfunctional tired. When and if I finally get into bed, I lie awake for hours wondering why anyone so exhausted is still awake.

It ‘s the kind of tired you get when you have a 16 year old out babysitting until midnight on a Tuesday, a three year old who wakes up at 3:30 wailing, a mis-guided notion that exercise is important and you have to get up at 5:30am to fit it in and then a full day of teaching 16 and 17 year olds who have not let the chilly weather dampen their spring fever.

It’s a tired that makes me wonder if this is what life at 41 is like? I’m sure I had enough energy for all of this when I was 25. I could even do it hungover back then. Now I’m too tired to have even the second glass of wine.

Part of it, I’m sure, is a result of bad nutrition.  And I am the queen of the perpetual circle. I’m too exhausted to worry about eating well so I justify junk which leaves me feeling rotten and zapped of energy so I eat more junk.

Part of it is a gaffer who seems to have given up sleeping through the night. Usually this just requires a 3 – 4 am visit to adjust covers and maybe put on a quiet Cd. But last night when I found her straddling my chest at 2:00 am ready to play in Mommy’s bed, my sympathy for her sleep concerns began to wane. When she announced at 6:00 am on my only sleep-in day that she was ready for breakfast I seriously began to wonder what I had done in my youth or childhood to deserve this.

The problem with being exhausted is that it is exactly like everyone in every magazine and pamphlet tells us. It is impairing. I am patience impaired, decision-making impaired, complicated thought processing impaired and fun impaired. Instead of carrying a head on my shoulders full of details, schedules and problem-solving strategies, I lug around blame conversations of whose fault it is that I got this way and what he could do to fix it if he even noticed what was going on. Next to that conversation is the avoid switch, where I can no longer bring myself to pick up one more dish, fold another shirt, move a toy or cook and meal and thus my home begins to reflect the chaos theory I have allowed to take up residence in my cerebral cortex.

And now I feel an exhausted manic surging as I re-read my post and recognize that my words are getting bigger and my thoughts more convoluted.

I should go. I should have a morning nap, or go for a run, or make a healthy smoothy, or clean my kitchen or do anything that may make me feel better. But really I want to stay right here, where it’s safe, where I’m on a roll and I look like I’m working very hard to anyone in my home who may want to interrupt me…not that that has every stopped them before.

But I better run. I still have to pack for the weekend, I believe we are leaving soon, clean the kitchen up, move the wet laundry into the dryer so it doesn’t get mouldy, change the gaffer….no wonder I’m tired.