Getting On
Made a tactical error before bed last night. Ate some spice drops, my favorite candy treat. Sure enough right about 1:30 the sugar hit my system, and up I popped. I know better than to eat before bed, but the drops were there on the counter begging to be eaten. I obliged. My suddenly awake brain thought it was time to work, so it dredged up some 1990’s workplace memories for me to mull. I said no thanks. Got up, took a big drink of water, and got back to sleep.
My normal mid-night wake up is around three. It’s the normal old man wake up. It’s not great either, but at least I’ve had about five hours of sleep. An earlier wake up can be a disaster if my mind gets away from me, and sleep never returns. That has happened. But I reined it in last night and had what feels like a decent night abed. I even dreamed and woke feeling refreshed. And you might be thinking, why is he writing about his sleep, and I will tell you that 50% of my audience is over 65 and was probably awake with me. And the younger half is being well served to see what’s coming.
Besides, as a writer it’s what I know, now, and for me it’s a nice break from the last ten years of dementia and grief. It might be fashionable to say I’m finally over it, but it’s probably more accurate to say I’ve learned to walk with the limp. Life has gone on and I’m going with it. The dead will always be there in pictures and in the faces of those left behind, but I still have that urge to make something of myself, even at my advanced age. And this is me getting on with it, baggage and all.