Last Monday, I had to have a client arrested at one of my offices, the person who is the reason I became a counselor died suddenly, and the husband of one of my really good friends was, I was sure, going to pass away in the following day or two. Also one of my employees gave their notice in a way that was…we’ll say not ideal and leave it at that.
That was just Monday.
The next day, my friend’s husband passed away, I was scrambling to get my shit together before class, and I was struggling with how I was going to do that given that this beloved professor of mine taught the very class I am teaching this summer. I’ve taught it before and realized even then that his shoes would be impossible to fill and was able to fully accept that, but this suddenly felt heavier.
Wednesday some other fuckery happened. I think I had that meeting with my functional medicine person.
Friday, I was in Boston. I came home, passed out, and also slept a lot of the weekend. I was totally tapped.
In that time, I ordered all of the supplements I needed, and they came yesterday. Also notable, I started with a new therapist yesterday. It was well past time - I’d been with my previous person for 12 years, and though this person changed my life and I will forever be in her debt, it was time for a new set of eyes.
Anyway, I took these new supplements for the first time yesterday evening, went and taught my class, and then an hour later, was passed out in my couch. I got up, went to bed, and then proceeded to get the best night of sleep that I’ve gotten in a decade.
It made me wonder if the quality of my sleep has shifted so gradually that I didn’t even realize it was bad. That’s happened before, like when I woke up from brain surgery and realized I’d had a headache for 20 years that had built so gradually that I didn’t even realize I was in pain.
I know, on some level, that my sleep was bad. How could it not be with the drastic shifts in my hormones and my stress level over the past four years? I was generally getting anywhere from 5-6 hours a night and if last night was the bar I want to set for my quality of sleep, the sleep I was getting before was terrible. Abysmal, even. I got nine and a half entire hours last night, and the only thing that woke me up was my sleeping dog howling so loudly that he woke up all of us. I thought we had an intruder. We did not.
He also has really learned to turn on the melodrama. I think this one was when we wouldn’t take him outside for no reason.
(He does this with a pitiful, high-pitched whine. Poor bub. I’m pretty sure he’s doing it right now because I’m three minutes late with his breakfast.)
So, it could be the supplements. It could be the self-care. It could be the vocal surgery. It could be a combination. I’ll tell you that I feel closer to my old self than I have in four years as I adjust to my surgery, which will take 2-3 months.
What a relief.
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