My House

Confusion and Renewal

I'm still confused about my midnight anxiety attack the other day.  I probably only ended up getting about 2-3 hours of sleep that night.  I canceled my early morning training session the following morning.  It just wouldn't have been safe to try to pump heavy weights while sleep deprived.  I've been helping myself to sleep since then with some Benedryl.  I don't like taking supplements, but I just can't afford missing much sleep.  My time is so crunched as it is, I can't imagine finding extra time to catch up on anything these days.

Anyway, I don't know why these memories triggered such a panicked response the other night.  I've been thinking on it.  Perhaps because it was near an anniversary?  Or perhaps it's also related to this path I'm currently traveling--becoming healthy and losing weight.  I haven't figured it out yet, but it just doesn't make sense that it was simply the anniversary.  Those have come and gone lately without much notice.  Maybe it was nothing.  I don't know. 

Stephanie, thanks for commenting!  You are the first to find me since I started blogging again.

I joined this gym several months ago.  They have a great childcare program.  They don't just have babysitting, they have activities for the kids.  Anyway, I tried taking the girls there when I first joined.  It did not go well.  So I've been working out very early in the morning and returning home before they little ones wake up.  If I don't make it to the gym in the morning, I don't go, and I lose a day and my momentum.  I decided to try the girls there again today.  After all, the little one is now 2!!  (And she seems to finally be growing out of the separation anxiety thing)  It was beautiful!  The girls had a great time, and I actually had to bribe them to leave and come home!  Ha!  So now if I can't make it early in the morning (It's still my first choice, though), I have options.  So I have fewer excuses, and more chances of success.

We met with the designer for our future basement project.  Ugh.  This is expensive.  One of the estimates came in WAY higher than we expected.  So, we negotiate.  Hopefully, they will be able to start construction in a couple of weeks.  I can't wait for this project to be finished.  It may be a while before we can afford furniture to put in these rooms, though.  It should make a lovely ballroom...

Sleepless

I can't sleep lately.  I'm so frustrated.  I try to fall asleep.  I listen to audio books or music to relax me and quiet my mind.  I've tried herbs, even OTC medication.  But it's not working.

My brain just doesn't stop!  I don't understand.  It's as if once my surroundings have quieted, by brain starts processing, talking on and on. 

Tonight, I was nearly asleep when my husband's phone rang.  He's on call.  I had been listening to my latest audio book.  I removed my ear buds, convinced that I was relaxed enough to drift back off.  My brain started wandering.  I found myself thinking about meal preps centers---I have to find a new one since the one that I'd used last has recently closed....and I thought about the first center that I had been to.  My last miscarriage.  It started at that meal center.  I could feel my anxiety, my heart beating faster, my hands getting clammy.  Wait, when was that?  Crap.  I just missed the anniversary.

Ok, shift my thoughts.  Think of how wonderful my life is now.  My family is complete.  I have two beautiful healthy children.  Think about the years since that date three years ago.  I have my youngest.  Last year, right about this time was, crap, it was when my oldest fell and broke her teeth.  Yup.  There's the anxiety again.  Oh, I remember her pain, the dentist, the surgeon. 

Ok.  I give up.  I'm up.  I'm out of bed.  This entry is my attempt to purge my brain.  Maybe I need to do this every night?  Maybe a session of free writing to just purge my thoughts will calm my mind?  I have to figure something out.  I can't continue living on so little sleep.  As it is, I have to be up in 5 1/2 hours to go to the gym.  I need the sleep!!

I can't believe that it's been three years since my last miscarriage.  As I was remembering it tonight, the pain was still so fresh.  I felt my stomach sink once again as I remember seeing the blood on the toilet paper that day.  My heart was once again in my throat!  I haven't thought about this in a while.  I guess that I expected the pain to become as distant as the memory.  However, it seems that I just think about it less often.  The pain doesn't lessen, just the frequency of the memory.

And I am so very grateful.  My family is complete.  My girls are beautiful and the loves of my life.  I need to remember that more.  Believe me, I don't take them for granted.  I show them every chance I get that they are adored.  But perhaps remembering will help me put things into perspective.  For instance, today I found clippings of hair that The Big One apparently imposed on herself (I knew she was up to something with those scissors!!).  I was frustrated and angry when I found the hair this evening.  I was ready to really lay down the law with her tomorrow morning.  After remembering my losses, well, this is no big deal.  It's almost even funny.  Her hair is so curly that I bet it isn't noticeable.  After all, I didn't notice until I found the clippings!  I bet that she has already learned her lesson on her own.  And it's only hair, right??

I need to try to sleep again.  I'm going to quickly jot done a to do list for tomorrow so I can at least let those thoughts go.  Then I think that I'm going to steal a stuffed animals from one of my daughters (from the playroom, really), and I'm going to snuggle it tonight.  I want to hold them close to me tonight while I dream.

Discovery

I finally got back on the treadmill yesterday morning.  It was very cold down in my basement, as it was single digits outside.  But I did it, and I ran a faster pace than I usually do.  I use the Nike + iPod to gage my speed and distance.  It seems that my treadmill is not accurate.  Anyway, it's a nice motivational tool for me--it essentially got me back on the treadmill with all the teasing and taunting!

So we are starting to go through some things in our basement.  We need to clean out the space so that construction can begin in a couple of weeks.  Thanks to a flood in the basement when we first moved in, we don't have a lot of stuff, but my parents have been bringing boxes from their basement.  These boxes are full of things that I packed away when I moved out of my parent's house nearly 20 years ago.  It is interesting to see what I thought was important enough to keep.  There is a lot that I'm throwing away (read: JUNK!!), but I am keeping some.

Anyway, it has made me reminisce a bit.  I found a box full of dance costumes.  I danced for 18 years, so there are many more costumes that aren't there, and that's ok with me.  I may be able to clean some of them up for the girls to play with. 

My mother collected little porcelain angels when she was a girl.  I had many from her collection that I kept.  I'm very happy to see them.  While they're very campy looking, they certainly hold sentimental meaning to me.  I think that my girls will like them, too.

It's so strange.  I've always been the type of person that can just close a chapter of my life and not look back.  There are so many memories of my childhood that I've lost.  I was a very different person then.  I guess that we all grow and change, but other people seem to be able to remember more.  It makes me a little sad that I've forgotten, but there's really not much that I can do about it now.  I guess that I've succeeded in living in the present.

Going through these boxes has helped me remember a fe things, but it's almost as if these boxes were packed by someone else.  I'm uncovering a stranger in these boxes, and I'm looking forward to finding out more about her.