SLEEP

Today I woke up at 1:47am. I then tried a few things that should have helped me fall back asleep. By 5:17am I was still as wide awake as an owl. This no sleep is more frequent than I like. So many thoughts went through my head.

"Oh no. Today will be a disaster!" Stop! Negative thoughts will not help. How do I turn my situation around. Yes, maintain positive thoughts all day in my head and have a sincere conversation with Jesus about my dilemma, requesting his wisdom for my situation as to the route I must take in getting my sleep restored.

There is one thing that I desire—the ability to fall asleep and stay sound asleep until it is time to wake up. As I get older (late 50s and into 60s), I realize that sound sleep on a daily basis is a dream. Sometimes I think, maybe this is built into the human design. As one gets older, the inability to sleep can cause one to live a shorter lifespan, oh like 70s rather than onwards to 100s. Whatever the case, I am realizing for myself that my inability to sleep is a detriment. Yet Tom still sleeps like a baby EVERY. SINGLE. NIGHT!

I know I've had periods of time when my sleeping problem was worse than now and I was able to improve. So I am searching my brain to bring my thoughts to, "What did I do in the past to get my sleep back?"

It was about ten years ago, I went through a time of not being able to sleep. I read a lot. I searched for books that would give me methods to sleep. I found The Effortless Sleep Method by Sasha Stephens. I don't remember all of it. I will browse through it, or rather read it again and try those methods again. Hopefully this will work and I won't have to do further research. Hopefully visiting this old book will improve my ability to sleep as it has done in the past.

Meanwhile my thoughts are turning to how I want to spend my retirement phase. Oh yes, work on doing research towards reversing my memory loss. Read and search daily. Read about eating healthy.  Read about improving memory. Paint and be creative, or at least start developing an ease in painting to create finished products. Write, write, write, and write. When there is nothing to write about, still continue to write. Continue to exercise. If an actual workout is too hard to think about starting, like right now, make sure to go for a long walk. Enjoy each day that I am together with Tom. We are entering into a new life of being seniors together. That brings a smile to my face. For so long, I thought of us as being young. Seniors are those who are not as resilient in health and mind. Well, whatever that is, we can be seniors. We'll just change the definition of what a senior is. For me, it is working towards all these items I have mentioned.

My grandfather died at the age of 104. One morning his great granddaughter ran up the stairs to call her old great grandpa down to breakfast. She did this every morning, and she enjoyed this little errand. But this morning he did not respond. She shook him and called him to no avail. She called her mother who came up to help wake the old grandpa. He never woke up.

I think of that scenario often. At his age, he still climbed up and down the stairs whenever he was called to eat. I remember going up the hill for morning walks before 7am with him. He was in his 70s and I was four or five years old. We would meet up with all of his old friends who also came out for morning walks before breakfast. I was the only child there, and I was proud to be with my grandpa.