On Sleeping…
Sleeping is overrated.
When I was growing up, my mom was a night-owl, usually staying up reading until 2 or 3 in the morning. My dad was a morning person, probably attributed to almost 25 years in the military.
Some part of me thinks that I tried to be awake for both of them from an early age. So I ended up waking early and going to bed late. 
A habit I’ve never really beaten.
I rarely really sleep. I think I attribute it to not wanting to miss anything. There is always something else I could be doing, something else that needs to get done before some arbitrary bullshit deadline I’ve created for myself. When I do turn the lights off and try it’s restless and pretty much unrewarding.
And now there is work. I’ve been a self-employed consultant for just about a year now. My odd sleeping hours have both made it difficult and made me ideally suited for the kind of work I do. (The only customers who complain are the ones who expect me to be on-site at 8am, though I usually explain up front why that is an unrealistic expectation.
I drink redbull and Starbucks to excess, I work too damned much, I try not to think about the fact that I spend 80% of my time away from home, missing my family. I’m an un-medicated Manic-Depressive. Un-medicated by choice because the last time I let a psychiatrist experiment on me was one of the times I came closest to suicide.
So I try desperately not to spiral out of control. Usually I do a pretty good job of keeping my shit together and keeping it under control.
And sometimes….not so much.
Luckily today was an under control day.
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I can’t take naps – any more than I can sleep in in the morning. Once the sun is up I’m incapable of sleep.
This poses a problem for someone who is, by his very nature, a night-owl. I finally passed out this morning at about 5am, and was up at 7:30 like a damned blue-bird.
The problem is that the human body can only run like that for so long. Then it crashes. That’s the one day, about every other month or so, that I sleep for 36 hours straight.
I have the hardest time taking naps. Well, did before my body decided it’d rather shut down with this pregnancy thing (you’d think I was dying, seriously.) My brain would never shut the frick up and would run endlessly. I had “deadlines” that were self-set and REALLY didn’t matter to anyone but me whether they were done on time. I never let myself rest – just made up 20 more deadlines when the others were completed. Then, when I got really tired, I’d agree to write articles for a magazine editor or do something else dumb that I had no time for. BUT…I could always fall asleep at night. I can’t imagine not having that. I love sleep. I crave sleep. I need it. I’m a big baby without it…or a jerk. Whichever.
Sometimes, I think working from home or for yourself can be really hard on the whole depression/sleep/stress table —You don’t have set hours and you never really “walk away” from a set job. You know? I work from home and my work is always here…sometimes it’s hard to not feel like I should still be doing something. My house is never clean ENOUGH and I’ve never done ENOUGH work, so therefore I do not deserve to sleep yet.
Hope you get some sleep!
4am my time…..
I almost have a lame excuse for being up this time though, I *JUST* finished the project I was working on. I should probably hit it soon though, my alarm goes off at 0830 whether I like it or not.
Both not sleeping and manic-depression run in my family. So I understand just what you are saying here. And that is also why I am responding to you are 1AM my time. Heh.