Today is a plain, old Monday. I didn’t sleep well last night, so I’m taking things slowly today.
The wind was howling so much overnight that I couldn’t ignore it. It sounded as it the trees in my backyard were going to come crashing down on the garage. They didn’t, but our next-door neighbor did have one of his collapse onto the main road.
My mind was racing at a thousand miles an hour.
I kept going over things I should have done yesterday and didn’t.
I didn’t finish preparing our 2023 taxes to send to our accountant because I’ve misplaced several pieces of critical information. I think I can request duplicates, but who knows if I can receive them quickly?
I started thinking about trees. Tom Paxton and Beth Neilson Chapman decided to co-write a song at the recent Folk Alliance International conference in Kansas City. It went something like this: “Beneath this tree…this tree of oak…” They were doing this in front of a live audience in the span of an hour. My racing brain last night was trying to re-write what they had written. What a fool I am to try to improve on what two successful professional songwriters can do! I have only written about four actually singable songs.
Then I started worrying about our daughter-in-law, who’s having gall bladder surgery today. I know it’s not major surgery, but she and our son have a lot of stuff happening in their lives, and, since they live almost four hours away from us, and we cannot be there to help them, I was concerned about their kids.
All these thoughts swirled inside my brain. Then I remembered that, whenever we change the time by an hour, whether we gain or lose an hour, my circadian rhythms go bonkers. It takes me three or four weeks to get used to all this. It also takes a mechanical engineer to figure out how to reset the time in my Subaru Forester.
Guess I should tackle that now…
Good Morning, my Dear Wanda,
You need some hugs and love today. Therefore, I allow you to lay down the superwoman costume and be a woman; just be yourself. Those papers that you need will turn up when you calm down and stop trying to make yourself find them.
I will pray that your daughter-in-law goes through her surgery well. Surgery is surgery, and you have every right to be concerned. So, I’m permitting you to be concerned because that is the kind of caring person you are.
And that song about trees that Tom Paxton and Beth Neilson Chapman were writing before a live audience? Well… I allow you to write that song your way, add your lyrics, sing, hum, or whatever because it pleases you, and you are one talented woman. You don’t need to be like anybody else but you…. Wanda.
Finally, you are not a fool. When I think about what I know about you, I would say you are a woman who took a lemon and made it out of the best Lemon Pound Cake ever made. (Lemon Pound Cake is my favorite cake.) And your children, grandchildren, and all those kids you help to read are a testimony of who you are: a woman with a heart. ❤️
Shalom shalom
Thank you for your kindness, Pat. I love lemon pound cake! I’ll have to find some and savor it in your honor. You are amazing.
Wanda, I also have the habit of waking during the night. Usually, I just roll over and go back to sleep. Sometimes, my mind tells me how messed up my life is and how miserable I am going to be. Stupid brain!
At times like that, I get out of bed, go to my living room couch, and calm my mind. It generally takes 5 or 10 minutes until I realize my worries were not real. Then I calm down, and back to bed. All the best!
Great idea, Karl. I’ll try that next time!
I stay awake for ages before I manage to sleep. I try not to worry about it too much or it simply gets worse. My mind also seems to go into overdrive when I try to go to sleep.
I think it is the way we are made. I am envious of those who put head upon pilloW and off they go HISS… BOO !!
The worst times were when I was required to talk to over 100 new recruits to the Trust or give a lecture on Risk management to a large incoming pack of junior Doctors and that happened every 6 months..
There was a song back in the 1960s that said “Worry is a rocking chair, it goes back and forth and you get nowhere…” But we all do it! Run things over and over in our minds to try to come up with solutions. Sometimes we come up with solutions, sometimes we don’t. But at least we’re thinking.
Wanda, unfortunately, worrying while trying to go to sleep or trying to solve issues from earlier in the day never allows sleep to come. The real secret is to get your mind to rest…how is that done? Solve that and you have a real money-maker. I also like all the comments above…all food for thought. I hope all went well during the surgery!
My daughter-in-law did well in her surgery. She is home resting now.
I don’t have many of those brain-rushing nights now that I’m not working full-time any more. When I was working full-time, I had all kinds of craziness floating around my brain. Now it only happens every now and then. I see all these ads on TV for brown noise or white noise. That would never work!
Hey Wanda!
Just count to 10 and take a deep deep breath. It will help a little. I find myself doing 2 and 3 different things at the same time so naturally I’m going to forget something I was in the middle of and discover later in the day that I didn’t finish that project. I have to learn to slow down and do one thing at a time.
You’ll be alright.
Yes, I will. Went to hear some great music last night (I even got my husband out of the house, which is a minor miracle!). That always helps!
Hi, Wanda,
I related to everything you mentioned, except maybe thinking about the song since I’m not a song-writer or musically inclined. We, too, have a Subaru Forester, and the clock stays on summer time year-round. We have to remember to add (or subtract?) an hour in our heads for half the year. Taxes are my most-dreaded task every year. Miraculously, they got done before the end of February this year. Most years, we get extensions and I wait until September. Hope you found all the missing documents!
Blessings!
Thanks, Patty. I mailed those dreaded taxes off this week. I was able to go online and get duplicate documents. Thank heaven for the Internet!