Next thing I know, it's 20 minutes later...I had fallen asleep, right in my chair, at my desk...sitting up. After a few second of being totally disoriented, I realized what had happened. I felt good...so relaxed, quite unusual for me. I just smiled because it was kind of cool..
Any regular reader to this blog knows by now that I don't really sleep much, certainly not regularly. So it's pretty typical for me to drink coffee throughout the day. Combine an entire days worth of strong coffee with my natural tendency to be chock full of nervous energy anyway and I am a pretty jittery live wire at the end of a day.
So I find it amusing and yea, kind of cool that I felt relaxed enough to grab a couple of zzz's when I obviously needed it. I sense that I am feeling more relaxed in my day to day life. That is really a wonderful and amazing thing. Holy Shit, Could it be that I am starting to feel comfortable in my own skin?!?
Perhaps I am..I do feel like I "fit" more these days...as if I truly have a legitimate place in the world. That is an incredibly significant realization for me...I'm not kidding.
I NEVER felt like I belonged, anywhere, EVER. I was almost always OUTSIDE looking in and the few times I wasn't, I was INSIDE looking out! I was permanently outside the circle of life...
And I felt that imbalance, that freakishness very intensely. Did it cause my issues w/booze and drugs. HELL NO...but it sure didn't help things. It accentuated those feelings to a large degree. Feeling alienated like 100% of the time is not good for a person, take my word for it folks...I basically always felt like I was walking sideways, often times right over a cliff.
Those feelings have slowly but surely dissipated the longer I've been in recovery. But they will still pop up now and again. Things are generally better today but the underlying tension is always there. An intense awareness, rarely letting it's guard down, always watching...
That is why it surprises me so much that I felt comfortable enough to just...drift away. It was very pleasant and relaxing. And the truth is it will probably never happen that way again. But for this one night, I was free-floating in a dream, on a sea of forgotten teardrops, longing for home. And life was good...
Cool about the human cat nap. Next time it happens (which I think it just might), hopefully you don't end up drooling on the desk, or the keyboard.
ReplyDeleteUh... you drink coffee all day? Perhaps a wee bit of a contributing factor to the non-sleeping issue???
Like the sound of the last sentence.
Spockgirl-No, the sleeping issue for me these days is almost totally related to pain (Hips, Knees, Back and Neck). I can only lay in one spot for about an hour and then pain wakes me up. I also have other medical issues that get me up every hour or two (read: having to pee [same bladder issues I have had since I was 3] and severe A.R.D-Acid Reflux Disease). What happens is those things wake me up and I tend to fall back asleep right away when I lay down, it's just that I can't always lay right down, sometimes I have to sit or stand for awhile. It's the reason people see me posting on the Net in the middle of the night.
ReplyDeleteI have always been able to drink coffee (or back in the day snort Cocaine, take Speed) and go right to sleep, I don't know how. My Doc believes it is directly related to my disease of alcoholism/addiction. It's hard to deny that. My mom says that I always had the opposite reaction to medications then what it was suppose to be. For example: when I was 3 they, I was hospitalized for bladder issues, they gave me something to help me rest/sleep since I was agitated. She said that it just woke me up even more to the point where they had to give me major sedation which eventually did the trick...
T:
ReplyDeleteUm... yeah... I knew from reading your blog that the sleep issue had to do with your creaky old wrecked up body, but thanks for splaining in more detail.
I have to add though that coffee IS a diuretic, which could be inflaming (for lack of a better word) your bladder issue? It could also be contributing to the acid reflux? I'm just putting these questions out here to ponder. Also, I have taken into consideration that in the last few years as you have overcome your addictions and your system has been purged of those particular toxins, your body has also been undergoing change, and perhaps the way it processes other food and drink may be affected over time as well?
Interesting about medications having an opposite effect on you, especially from such a young age.
SG-Yea, huh not sure why I felt I had to explain that to you in such detail just funny that way I guess. But you are no doubt correct that I'm sure I could be doing more harm then good w/my diet.
ReplyDeleteIt was funny how my mother put 2&2 together and realized that I always reacted contrary to how one is supposed to to certain medications.
I was also really amused your description: "creaky old wrecked up body" pretty darn good for someone who actually hasn't seen me try to walk lately, lol!
I'm sleepy all the time...I'll send you more of my sleepy vibes. Maybe I'm hogging them all.
ReplyDelete