Day: May 15, 2014

My standard weekday schedule shorts me an hour or two of sleep per night. I sleep later on the weekends to restore balance, but the sleep deprivation still accumulates and about every other week I have a day where I send the kids off to school and go back to sleep for three to four hours. It seems like a waste to spend work hours on sleeping, but I can’t deny that I need it. I always feel better afterward. Today was an extra sleep day.

The effects of sleep deprivation on me are subtle. I’m more easily distracted, I write less, and I’m more prone to anxiety. Last night and this morning I felt that I was failing at everything. I was obviously in a downward spiral of failing-ness that would make everything in my life crash and burn. After the long nap my life feels possible again, although I do cringe when I think of opening my task list, because I know it will be full of the things I meant to accomplish today.

The good news is that in two weeks I will no longer have school-schedule-induced sleep deprivation. The bad news is that I won’t have a school schedule to encourage me to get up at a reasonable hour in the mornings. Sleeping til 10am is lovely for lazy vacation days and very counter productive for work days, because no matter when I start my work day, my brain quits around 5pm. So once again I find myself in late May, staring at the summer ahead and thinking “How does this work again?” This year has the additional wrinkle that I’ll be out of town for half of June, which will seriously impact my ability to establish routines.

As always, I’m thinking ahead more than I need to. It will all work out when I get there.