Last night I took a sleeping pill at 8:30 and, glory be, slept for a full eight hours. It was the first weeknight sine school started that I got the amount of sleep I needed.
I hadn't really considered sleeping pills before my summer with Jason. Like a good drug dealer, he offered me a trial dose for free. Like a good Victorian villain, he did it in a quiet hotel room in a foreign city late at night. Like a gentleman, he then drugged himself, donned his eyemask and earplugs, and tucked himself under the covers of his own bed. Alas.
Despite taking only half a pill, I was woosy well into the next day. My system was not as adept at handling the hard stuff as Jason's, hardened as he is by the gritty law-school-in-New-York life he escaped. Still, I am determined to take better care of myself this school year, and a big part of that is getting enough sleep. The sunshine and sound of children playing pouring through my windows be damned! I will go to bed on time! I will not toss and turn and think about what I need to do tomorrow! I will not cast shows and cut scripts and design sets when I close my eyes!
Except I totally do. Every night. So I bought my own set of pills and gave them a test-run over the weekend to see what kind of impact they had. Bam! Nine-point-five hours of solid sleep. Awesome for the weekend. Not so hot when I'm the one driving the carpool the next morning.
However, I was so exhausted Tuesday night that I figured it was worth the risk of still being drowsy in the morning. I took half a dose, shoved the cat off my chest a number of times, and fell soundly asleep.
I woke up with my alarm, and by the time I got to the carpool rendezvous point I was wide awake. I actually participated in the conversation on the drive up! And I had energy in my first period class! My goodness it was nice! Nice enough for me to repeat the dosage again tonight!
There's no hope for the full sleep tomorrow night - I'm going to see Les Mis and shan't be getting to bed until well after midnight. But I only have to teach one more day after that to reach a three-day weekend, and that's doable.
My inconsistencies with sleep aside, I'm actually doing pretty well with my goals for taking care of myself. We're two weeks into the school year and I have consistently
1) Worked out every day,
2) Made dinner at home instead of getting take-out, and
3) Kept my apartment clean (not quite Jason-level clean, but definitely more than normal-Amanda-level clean)
Even with a couple of late days for speech and drama stuff after school, I kept my goals. Yay me!
It's precarious. I know that such school-year goals tend to disintegrate around the middle of October, so I am taking careful notes of my successes so far in order to convince myself that keeping them is both doable and desirable. Fingers crossed.
And now I'm off to drug myself, don an eyemask, and get some sleep like a good grown-up.
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