Rough Day

Not sure if the stress in my life has been affecting me physically and emotionally or what, but my mind right now seems to be more or less a blank slate.

One factor might be a relatively sleepless 24 hour period just now. Luckily, I do not usually suffer from serious insomnia. But there may be a handful of days during the course of any given year where I actually seem to sleep very poorly, and yesterday was one of them. Got out of work after working some extra hours of overtime, but then, I just could not sleep more than two hours, even though I was physically and mentally exhausted. I lay there, wondering why sleep would come, and eventually, I made the rookie mistake of trying to "focus" on getting to sleep. Sleep is one of those things that just happens, and trying to force it almost always gets in the way of actually getting there. And so, after about an hour of trying, I got up, hoping to catch up on sleep later.

It didn't happen.

So, I went to my job - my overnight job, that is - and that means it can be a very long and tough shift to get through. Actually, as I write this, it has not been so bad. In fact, I was able to use my lunch break for a decent nap time, which is what I usually do with it, and it was actually quite refreshing and restorative. Plus, I didn't even oversleep, which was the big fear.

But the last few days have been quite stressful. I've already mentioned my weekend job, and how they are trying to force out us part-timers on the weekends. It's a battle, but it's draining. Being there is unpleasant nowadays. And on Sunday evening, I began to have a massive headache. Luckily, it was not a migraine. I did not experience nausea, and although the headache was gripping, and Sudafed did nothing, when I took two Advil a bit later, it took care of the problem. Good thing, too, because my next work shift comes right after that, at the overnight job.

Then, I forgot that I had actually volunteered for extra hours yesterday, so it was a twelve hour shift, rather than my normal four. Luckily, it was quiet and peaceful.

Then, the sleeplessness.

Finally, I had perhaps the most stressful night with my son. He was more than a handful last evening, and added to the sense of fatigue and stress.

His mom pointed out that he apparently has another tic. He already has a couple of these, but he seems to have new ones with alarming frequency.

Then, there was a project that I am supposed to help him with for the Tiger Scouts. It is a little wooden car that he will race. Last year, he won a prize. This year, we are doing it again, and borrowed tools. But he seems to mistake these for toys. He wanted desperately to do the sawing, which is only normal for a little boy. He wants to do it, of course. What little boy wouldn't? But he was acting like it couldn't possibly hurt him, and making me nervous, oblivious as he seemed of just how easily and quickly that thing could slip and give him a nasty, and deep, cut. Also, he was swinging a big hammer right by the car - the real one.

He kept asking me for help, but when I tried to tell him what we needed to do, he would roll his eyes and huff and puff. That kind of attitude I assumed would come in his teenage years, but not at such a young age (he is only eight years old). And at some point, we were horsing around, and he punched me, fist down, with a pen sticking out. It did not pierce the skin, or anything, and I was not seriously hurt. But, it made me quite angry that he would be that careless.

Later on, he told me to stop yelling at him, even though I had basically told him to brush his teeth and get ready for bed, and not in a yelling tone. When he says that, though, it arouses my anger, and yelling is usually not far away. Usually, I have to hold myself in check, but after all of the exasperations earlier in the day, it was a real struggle.

I tucked him in, and did not read to him, as I normally would. We had a talk instead, and I told him that I was sorry to have gotten angry so often, but reminded him that while he is my little boy and much loved, and usually a good boy, he, like all other kids, makes mistakes sometimes, and even does bad things sometimes. And when he does, such behavior needs to be disciplined.

He seemed to understand. Hopefully, he really did. We shall see. But at least I think I did the right thing by telling him what it was I was trying to accomplish, and why he was getting punished.

In any case, I realize that normally, these blog entries are about certain things. Topics, such as sports or book or movie reviews. Perhaps an opinion piece on something going on in the world, or just some other random stuff or other. Lately, there have been more personal entries, like this one, and I guess that's a reflection of what is on my mind right at the moment. A lot of things, unusual things,  have been happening in my life. And while not tragic, quite a bit of it has been stressful and consumed considerable time and energy, and prevented me from throwing myself as fully into a subject as sometimes I can otherwise do.

Apologies for that. Those blog entries will likely return soon enough.

In the meantime, thanks for listening (or reading)!