creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

sleep

by 16 Comments

The way I have been craving sleep lately you’d think I had a 6-month-old in the house or were insomniac. But it is neither. I can’t say for sure, but it might well be that every single journal entry for the last, um, four years has started with “I am so tired.” (Paper journal, not online thingy, blog.) Maybe this has replaced my obsession with food and feeling fat, who knows. Maybe, and this really is the first time I’m thinking this, this problem I have with sleep stems from the same source as my former eating disorder.

So. Sleep. Just to think of it. Becoming oblivious to the world, resting, dreaming, nesting under warm duvet covers. Bliss. So why do I never sleep enough? I could blame my son; that would be easy. And for years he has been the source of my lack of sleep. But since he turned two years old he has slept beautifully, only disturbed when sick. And, for some reason unknown to us, he keeps on waking up an hour earlier than usual on Saturdays. But since I have heard of children waking up at 5.30 or something, I won’t say anything against him.

I really have no problem with the sleep itself. When I have the feeling of having tossed and turned for ages before getting to sleep, my husband (the official tosser and turner in our family) informs me that it took me all of five minutes to start snoring. (And yes, I really often snore, I am allergic to mold and thus have a year-round snotty nose.) No, when I go to bed, everything is fine. I’m that kind of sleeper who after a nighttime thunderstorm gets up in the morning all rested and when asked, “Wasn’t that a terrible thunderstorm?” says, “What thunderstorm?” I come from a long line of sound sleepers, my parents are famous for their never-disturbed sleep. I lay my head on my pillow and that’s it until morning. When I have a particular restless night, I might wake up and look at the clock, or maybe go to the bathroom. Then I go back and sleep again. This is a very useful talent to have. Especially when faced with a sick child. Wake up, tend to child, go back to bed, fall asleep. Rinse and repeat. (Hey, I should have posted that as my hidden talent in the meme I answered two days ago. Ability to sleep under all circumstances.) I used to be able to sleep in rooms full of people, light and noise, but that’s where I feel my age, that’s no longer possible.

The time when sleep was most precious was, of course, when my son was a tiny baby. When he was born I thought to myself how amazingly easy it was to cope with the lack of sleep. I need a lot of sleep and was very much afraid that I’d be constantly overtired when having him. Well, the real sleep deprivation kicked in a little later. When I was working three days a week, still nursing him around the clock, and then, when he was eight months old, the teething started and he woke me every hour to use me as a human pacifier. Fun was had. At that point I was so tired that I dozed off when my husband told me something and paused for about one second.

But this is long past, we treated this with daddy on night duty for two weeks, teabottle at the ready; mama sleeping in the spare bedroom (soundproofed annex! hurray!) being off duty until 5 am. So after that I could have slept enough. Alas, I didn’t. What I do is this:

I go through my day tired, uttering frequently, “I’m so tired, I’m so tired! But today I will take a nap for sure.” Until it is time for the nap, then I’ll find something really important, like reading blogs, do that until my free time is over, then go through the rest of the day with glazed eyes announcing, “But today I will go to bed on time for sure!” every thirty minutes or so. After bringing my son to bed very slowly, because I’m so tired, I go off to my room, play a little piano or guitar, watch an episode of “Buffy” or two, talk to my husband, say, “Of course I will be going to bed on time today.” sincerely, then switch channels, watch some silly documentary about playboy bunnies or some such, get off the couch at 11, go to bed half an hour later, sleep until my alarm goes off at 6.45. Repeat.

You might say, what is she whining about, if I understand her correctly she gets a whole 7 1/2 hours of sleep. And nowadays everyone and her grandmother seem to think that six hours is enough and seven is plenty. I, on the other hand, do need at least 8 1/2 of sleep, better 9 to feel good and have a functioning brain. And from what I’m hearing and reading I’m not alone. A friend of mine recently told me, “I don’t know, why I am so tired, I am sleeping a full six hours every night.” Duh! I have a book (a good book) “Outsmarting Female Fatigue: Eight Energizing Strategies for Lifelong Vitality” (Debra Waterhouse) which say that most women need an average 8 1/2 hours of sleep. And that everything between 4 and 11 hours is considered normal. That doesn’t mean that it’s normal to sleep only 4 hours, it means that it might be normal for you. But if you’re tired, cranky, constantly hungry, forgetting things, and doze off in front of your TV every night, maybe you need to get more sleep. And maybe you’re somebody who needs 11 hours a night. Ever thought of that? Very inconvenient, but there is no fighting it. When you don’t get enough sleep, you’re tired.

That’s what I’ve been trying to teach my son. When you’re tired, you can eat all you want, it doesn’t help. Only sleeping does. Since having him, I know why people overeat when they’re tired by the way. Tired babies nurse to sleep. So eating provides everything good at once: company, cuddle contact, food, and help to get to sleep. When he was about a year old, he sometimes would literally eat himself to sleep. Fall asleep chewing. Stuffing tremendous amounts of food in his little mouth. That’s when I learned why I am constantly eating when I’m tired. And I like to eat more sugar in times like that, because with the sugar high I get a little boost too.

I’m a little older than a year, so I should know better. I do know better, I only don’t do better. So I’ve been giving myself stickers for going to bed before 11. For three years. Three years! I feel a little pathetic. Um, not just a little. I’ve invented a couple of little tricks. I clean my face and put on moisturizer when I have put my son to bed. I put on my pajama before sitting down to watch my show. I programmed my PDA to beep on bedtime. I have asked my husband to please remind me that it’s time. And for every evening that I have found my way triumphantly to bed before eleven there are two when I just stayed a little longer and went half an hour later. Or two hours later.

I fear I have to get my priorities right. Sleep. Is. Very. Important.

Or like I tell my son constantly: When you’re tired playing is no fun.

Go, have a nap on me.

Technorati Tags:

another meme

by 10 Comments

Ha, I really got tagged this time. Granted, asking somebody “And whom do you tag?” is about as subtle as jumping up and down, frantically waving and yelling “Pick me! Pick me!” on top of you lungs, but still, officially and personally tagged for the first time. Oh, by Meno. Why couldn’t I have reacted to a meme where you don’t have to think, like that itunes-meme I was thinking of stealing. So, questions and answers (and no multiple choice)

1. If you had to choose one vice in exclusion of all others, what would it be?
I didn’t know you get to choose the vices. I’d say over-indulgence. But I could have said beer. But that’s not a vice. Isn’t it?

2. If you could change one specific thing about the world, what would it be?
I would give all people complete awareness and enlightenment. But I think it doesn’t work that way.

3. Name the cartoon character you identify with the most.
Cartoon character? As in animated? I’ll copy this one from Meno and say Daria. I haven’t watched the show on a regular basis, but I liked her a lot.

4. If you could live one day in your life over again, which day would it be?
Well, only if you force me to. Maybe May 1st, 1994, when after our second date, my husband-to-be and I realized that we’d be staying together. It was spring, we went to the station hand in hand, and sat down on a bench looking at green and yellow fields and trees. Sigh. Though I don’t know, I spent the rest of the day working on my dissertation.

5. If you could go back in history and spend a day with one person, who would it be?
A writer I would have loved to meet, but who probably wouldn’t have been that interested in meeting me, would be Carolyn Heilbrun.

6. What is one thing you lost, sold, or threw away that you wish you had back?
Um. No regrets. New things are always so much more exciting.

7. What is your one most important contribution to this world?
Teaching people they can be creative, and that there is another lifestyle apart from being a “muggle”.

8. What is your one hidden talent that nearly no one knows about?
If I have one, it is hidden to me too. Though I may have a very hidden talent for drawing. I never draw, so I’m not good at it, but when I concentrate, sometimes one glances a sparkle of talent, inherited from my father and grandfather.

9. What is your most cherished possession?
This means things, doesn’t it? My piano. Though my computer comes in a close second. I have lived without computer and without piano. Without piano was worse. But then, why should I have to choose? (And if I only had the money, I’d buy a new piano in a split-second.)

10. What one person influenced your life the most when growing up?
Obviously my mother. (If Meno finds that exorcist, send her over to my place too, please.) Second, maybe Dorothy L. Sayers.

(I know it said one person, I’m not stupid, I have listened, but almost everybody is highly influenced by her mother. To say otherwise would be lying. But my mother is not the person that shaped my thinking much.)

11. What word describes you better than any other?
Confused? I’ll settle for complex. Ah, no, now I got it: woman.

Phew, describing a person with one word. I’m certainly not a one-word-person. Even when people are asking me for my sign I’ll say, “Leo with ascendent Sagittarius, but I’m not that fiery, because I have that Saturn on my moon in Aries, and then there’s this whole bunch of planets on top of my horoscope with all that scorpionic and plutonic influence, but my family is very fishy…”)

Okay, I’ve done it. That’s a tough one. So, anybody who wants to do this meme, feel tagged. I’m especially tagging De and Liv, who probably have better things to do with their time. (Psst, and if you’re to cool for memes? Just ignore it.)

I’m feeling good, I’m feeling good!

by 8 Comments

Just a few words to tell you that I feel almost normal again. Thanks for you concern and comments. I had wanted to write something longer and more profound, but the day turned out completely different from what I planned. Instead of writing and making music, I spent the morning running errands with my husband and then eating Chinese food. And then he made me happy by saying, “You know, I never told you, but though I criticize you all the time, I love you just the way you are. Even your faults.” Wow.

still a little low

by 6 Comments

(Just when you think you don’t know when to blog again, a student calls in sick. I hope she’ll be well soon, but this was my present for today.)

Still feeling a little low. Though I haven’t written here, I still have time to think. And I don’t like the phrase “I don’t have time”, because it isn’t true. I did lots of things during the past days, but I didn’t sit down and wrote anything. Maybe that’s my punishment. I had a writer’s meeting on Thursday and everybody went, “Oh, I just don’t know what to write about on my blog.” and I bragged, “Oh, having ideas is never the problem for me. Following them through is.” So for anybody interested in a topic, the topics I have waiting in line are: handicapped, sleep, transitions, life coaching, self-sacrificing mothers. Feel free to write about them if they appeal to you.

But for now I’ll write about the thing that is occupying me the most and that is depression. Maybe that is a “social justice” topic. It surely should be. (And I don’t really know where the line between personal and social is. They blur into another anyway.) I’m hesitating, because I don’t feel qualified to write about depression. But I don’t find another word to describe the mood I am in. It is like the problem I had when I found out I had an eating disorder. I watched TV and there were a couple of overeaters describing their eating patterns. They described my eating patterns exactly. Only I didn’t weigh 300 pounds. To this day most people who have known me for a long time think that I am a hypochondriac when I label myself as a former emotional overeater.

So I have light bipolar extra-light. Whatever. Currently there is a part of me that has gone numb, wants to go numb, a part that is constantly sitting in a corner wrapping her arms around herself. It feels like I’m wading through mud and rolling a boulder uphill all day long while having a vortex in my stomach. I’m tempted to feed the vortex food, chocolate in particular. And numb it with staring into the computer or TV. My energy is very low, I haven’t been sleeping well, I have been eating more than usual, especially more candy, I’m cranky and when my husband points out something to me that I forgot – and that happens a lot these days – I burst into tears.

And then there’s the other part of me, the aware and mindful part, that’s quite happy. The new conscious part of me that loves the sunshine and goes on exercising and doing housework, the part of me that goes out with friends and makes jokes and cares about herself and others. This is weird. I keep thinking that if only can immerse myself in that happy feeling the heavy rock in my stomach will melt. As it will, as it always does. It’s not that I’m depressed all the time.

When I still lived alone I treated this mood as if I were sick. I went to bed and didn’t get up for days. I went out only to get more potato chips, jelly beans, liquorice and chocolate. I’d sleep long enough to make me feel even weaker. I’d withdraw completely. Now I live with my family and this is no longer possible. I’m very happy about this, because not doing anything makes me feel even worse. I feel better, when I get out of the house and walk through the woods. When I eat real food my mood lifts a little.

In a comment to my last post Esereth wrote that there are deep reasons for depression and that I can kill it when I find out what’s causing it. So far I only have been able to find triggers: visiting my parents, not sleeping enough, not making enough music, staying indoors too much, listening to daily talk about the end of the world (okay, that was exaggerated). And who knows, maybe there is a part in me that loves this mood. I suspect this is the counterpart to the part that wants to have a highly streamlined, efficient, goal-oriented life. The hyper-organizer in me. And of course I haven’t played enough. There is the voice in me that once was my mother’s voice (and occasionally still is in real life) that says, “Who do you think you are?” There is the fact that there is winter and light is sparse. There is the fact that I am exhausted and overwhelmed. And there is the fact that I have been in manic overdrive mode for weeks without realizing it. That’s usually the main factor.

So, if there is a reason it may be the one that this lifetime around it is my turn to learn how to be persistent. I am not good at this. I’d like to live life in bursts and crashes. Work like crazy for a couple of weeks and then retreat to bed and do nothing for a couple of weeks. Either be the center of the party, shining, laughing, dancing, singing and telling funny stories or to stay at home and be alone. I could do that. I have done it often enough. The only catch is that it makes me neither happy nor content. So I’ll have to learn the “boring” path. The one where every day is the same as the last one. Where you work constantly without burning out.

I have a friend who told me that she feels slightly bipolar too. I asked her, “And what do you do about it?” She said that she just tries to enjoy that manic streaks and to treat herself as well as she can, when she’s depressed. I can’t accept that for my life. For one, real bipolar disorder is dangerous when not treated. The depression gets deeper and longer, and there are people turning suicidal. I don’t think that my mood swings qualify for a real disorder. I’m sure, if I’d go to a doctor with this, he’d laugh out loud. (And I have done the tests in my bipolar disorder books, thank you.)

But then there isn’t only healthy and sick. There are shades of grey in between. My first step now is to acknowledge that this is something I can’t control. No power of will can make me feel happy. If I ignore it, it comes back and hits me over the head. While at the same time I think that we can choose our emotions, I’m not yet able to do it constantly. And I think the main problem for me is to avoid overdrive mode. So my problem boils down to: How do you know whether you’re slightly manic or just extremely busy? And if I suspect that I’m in overdrive does that mean I cancel everything? Like my son’s kindergarten Christmas party? The trip to my parents that was higly anticipated by them and my son? Christmas? NaNoWriMo? And I can’t turn to my husband to help me, because he is showing symptoms of exhaustion too.

Thanks for listening to me. I’ll go to bed on time today. I promise.

Technorati Tags:

5 things you don’t know about me and just post

by 8 Comments

First of all, today is the day of the very first “just post” awards.

I had planned to write a beautiful post about handicapped people, but then life got in the way and you’ll have to wait for that one. Since the “just post”-award is still very young, there hasn’t been that much participation yet, but we’ll just promote it in the months to come. Oh, and this award was the result of the big fat social wedding of Jen and Mad. Since I’m really pressed for time today (and since I’ve really been wanting to do this for quite a time), I consider myself tagged with the “5 things you don’t know about me”-meme by Mir. (And when I say that you don’t know these things I’m thinking of people only knowing me through the blog, not of people like my sister, though she reads this too.)

  1. I didn’t drink a single drop of alcohol until I was 19 years old. I even refused to sip on something for social reasons. To this day my mother still is shocked, when she sees me drinking a beer. As Mir told about herself, I also was the designated driver for years, and was proud of my high morale standard. I felt very superior to people behaving like a typical drunk. I have to say, though, that even when drunk I never behave like a typical drunk. Like my husband, I only react by first being a little bit louder, then a blurring of speech, and then becoming a little more quiet.
  2. I smoked my very first cigarette when I was eight years old. Me and a couple of friends tried smoking behind a group of bushes in the woods. We felt really grown up and cool. Growing up in a smokers’ household, I neither had to cough or got sick. I held and lit the cigarette like I had done this my whole life. When later I tried to get more cigarettes by stealing a pack or two from my parents, I was found out. Thus ended my career as a smoker. I tried again four years later, but decided not to smoke. I never regretted it.
  3. Every man I ever had sex with was a musician. At first I had a pattern of percussionist, bass player, percussionist, bass player, but then I wandered and dated a pianist and later a clarinet player. Also, I never know how you count it, when you’re having an affair with two men at once. (I had an “open relationship” with the first bass player. Well, I can say this does not work for me.) The last one was also a bass player whom I then married. End of dating history so far, but, I’m grateful to say, not of sex.
  4. You know that when I studied music education my main instrument was – as it still is – voice, but what you don’t know is that my second instrument used to be drums. (Now you know how I met the percussionists.) People who haven’t seen me since that days still think of me as the drummer, but I haven’t touched drums since the end of our Brazilian band seven years ago. (Anyone interested in buying my congas?)
  5. As I’m writing this, I’m depressed again. Not as in “not-functioning and nearly suicidal”-depressed, but as in “feeling as if there were a vortex inside of me sucking away most of my energy”-depressed. Since wondering if I maybe am slightly bipolar, I haven’t had another “episode”. Only things like PMS. Before Christmas my husband said he thought I might be in a “manic” state. Of course I wasn’t, I only had a lot to do. Um. And I didn’t feel like I was soaring high. I didn’t take on lots of new projects. Mild overdrive due to circumstances. But since we returned from my parents I have been glued to the computer, checking e-mail about every other second, reading blogs and waiting for the evening which I spent in front of TV. Then going to bed too late, of course. And repeat. With the firm intention to do better the next day. And repeat. After four days of this, it dawned on me that this was not normal. I was feeling depressed. On Sunday I thought I had come out of it. Only to realize today that I’m still in it. The problem is, in a way, that I don’t have times anymore where I declare myself sick despite a lack of symptoms and then spend days in bed. I’m no longer living alone, I have work to do, I have family. And I know that I don’t feel better, when I’m staying in bed. So I get up, I make breakfast, I do minimal household chores, I talk to my family, I even am happy at times, but there’s a part inside of me that has gone numb and wishes to stay that way. I know that eventually I will come out of it and that exercise, enough sleep, real food, cuddling and walks in the woods help. But I don’t know what’s happening. There are triggers, but there are no deep reasons. Weird.

So this is the reason, why I haven’t posted, why I’m sounding a little off.

So this month I’ll have to rely on others to change the world for the better. Please go and look at the just post awards. (And don’t worry about me, please.)

Technorati Tags: ,

why I still might be a book person after all

by 4 Comments

I got fabulous Christmas presents this year, but I didn’t get a single book. And that got me thinking. I already knew that I had been reading less books in the past year, because I have started watching DVDs every night. In case you’re curious, I got a pen from my parents (it pays to tell people exactly what you want), the DVD of “Mirrormask” a film David McKean and Neil Gaiman made together, which my sister picked from my Amazon wishlist, and my husband surprised me with – DVDs.

I knew that he had picked a present for me way earlier than usual, because he told me not to check his e-mail, Amazon account or bank account. He then added, “I was able to buy more of them that I thought.” More of what? I concluded that he had either bought me more Buffy-DVDs or sets of oracle cards which are on my wishlist too. Imagine my delight and surprise when I opened the package to find season 1 and 2 of “Deep Space Nine”. Yes, I am into Star Trek too and my husband and I agree on “Deep Space Nine” being the best of all the series. (I know that we might be the only two people in the world to hold this opinion.)

Back to the books. I sat there on Christmas Eve and looked at my wonderful presents and got confused. No book! Well, I thought, I’m just not a book person anymore, I have started to become somebody who watches films. Back home I realized that there still are quite a few books around. There’s a pile on my desk, there are bookshelves aplenty, maybe there was something I had overlooked. So I decided to look into my book database to see how many books I had bought or been given in 2006. Yes, I have so many books that I need to file them on my computer so I won’t buy doubles or never find them again. Okay, are you ready? I got 21 new books in 2006.

Then I thought, “What about ebooks?” That was a little harder to find out, since I don’t record them in my database (which is a little weird, come to think of it, as if they didn’t count.), but finally I got the number down, I acquired 9 ebooks in 2006.

So, how many of those books have I read? I read 11 ebooks in 2006, because I had bought some more at the end of 2005. I read 16 of the real books I have gotten in 2006, I started reading 5 or 6 more. The reason that I thought I no longer am a book person is that most of these books are non-fiction. I read two books on finances, one on abundance, three books by life-coach Cheryl Richardson, one organizational book, two about improving your relationship (“Getting the love you want”, which is excellent and one other that I don’t remember given to me by a friend that wasn’t telling me anything new.), a fitness book about T-Tapp, three books about songwriting (the third is a book of exercises that I only have begun), two books on bipolar disorder, and a parenting book (only one?) “Playful Parenting” that I highly recommend. Oh, and I re-read at least partially “Writing down the bones” and “Creativity rules!” in preparation of NaNoWriMo. Phew. I spare you the titles and details of all these books. Now to the fiction, because that’s what really counts:


“Dark Tort: A Novel of Suspense (Goldy Bear Culinary Mysteries)” (Diane Mott Davidson)

I have loved the Goldy Bear mysteries for a long time, but I have the feeling that they get a little weaker. But then, it is hard to write a series with all strong books. I don’t think, I will re-read this.


“Strange Travelers: New Selected Stories” (Gene Wolfe)
I’m still not quite finished with these. They are marvelous, but not easy reading and it wasn’t the best choice to buy this as an ebook.


“Destroyer (Foreigner Universe)” (C. J. Cherryh)
I love every single book of the foreigner series and they keep getting better. I’m eagerly awaiting the next one coming out in paperback.


“Cat’s Eyewitness (Mrs. Murphy Mysteries (Paperback))” (Rita Mae Brown)
Okay, though I couldn’t say anything about the plot anymore. There seems to be problem with mystery series here.


“First Meetings in Ender’s Universe” (Orson Scott Card)
Good read, but I read it more for the closure of reading everything in the Ender Universe.


“Shadow of the Giant (Ender, Book 8) (Ender’s Shadow)” (Orson Scott Card)

Very good.


“Mona Lisa Overdrive (Bantam Spectra Book)” (William Gibson)

I decided to buy the whole Neuromancer trilogy again in English. I had only read them in German before and was annoyed with the translator’s habit of putting footnotes in to explain things like “cursor”. One has to keep in mind though that these were originally written in the 80s.


“I Had Brain Surgery, What’s Your Excuse?” (Suzy Becker)
Here we have the biography section. I seem to be reading more and more of these lately. This one is fun and entertaining despite the heavy subject.


“Composing a Life” (Mary Catherine Bateson)
This one I ordered because Suzy Becker had mentioned it.


“With a Daughter’s Eye” (Mary Catherine Bateson)

Well, obviously I had liked “Composing a Life”. This one is a memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. Since I once also studied anthropology, it was a must read.


“Shadowmarch: Volume I” (Tad Williams)

I love Tad Williams not least for the fact that his books are huge tombstones. This one was a little slow to get into, but I’m already waiting for part 2.


“Floor Sample” (Julia Cameron)

I have read almost everything by Julia Cameron who is one of my heroes. This memoir (yes, another one) was very interesting to read and showed facets of her that one can’t see through her other books.


“Wintersmith” (Terry Pratchett)

Terry Pratchett is the only author, apart from J.K.Rowling, whose books I allow myself to buy in hardcover because I can’t wait for them. I love, love, love his books. Especially the ones with witches in them and so, of course, I like the Tiffany Aching books too.

I know that I re-read at least the three Tiffany Aching books by Terry Pratchett, but I may have re-read a couple of his other books too. I usually re-read the whole discworld series from time to time. When I read C.J.Cherry, I re-read a couple of foreigner books too, and I know that I re-read all of the Mrs. Pollifax novels, two other novels by Dorothy Gilman (about a psychic), and at least “Gaudy Night” by Dorothy L. Sayers. The thing that made me feel like a non-bookish person was the fact that I read less fiction than I used to and that “Until I find you” has been sitting on the shelf for half a year. I remember finding it in a real bookstore (as opposed to Amazon, where I do most of my book shopping), and anticipating reading it. Then, every time I had to pick a new book, I thought, “No, it’s to heavy, I’ll pick something else. Currently I’m reading “Running from the deity” by Alan Dean Foster. I’m not finding it that thrilling, but since it’s part of a series…

Actually I’m lying when I say, the book I’m currently reading, because the books I’m currently reading are: “Take Time for Your Life”, “Ask Your Spirit Guides”, “Head First HTML”, “Handbuch Buddhismus” (wow, one in German!), “Getting Things Done” (highly recommendable) and “History of Early Witchcraft”. Um.

So, how many books did you read last year? Anything interesting? I find it quite amusing that I only read about two books in German. No wonder I’m blogging in English. Sometimes I’m even thinking in English. What do you think, should I write about the books I read? My writing buddy Adrian does this, and I always find it intriguing to see what books the people I like hold dear.