I am so tired. Everyday. Almost every hour of every day. The cause is easy to identify, but seemingly difficult to remedy. I don’t sleep enough. I am an early bird living with two night owls. I am a light sleeper in a house where people walk around all night long. I am a sponge of other people’s emotions, meaning my brain spins not only with my thoughts but also the perceived thoughts of others.

The effect of this is that I don’t get stuff done. I often feel lazy and then guilty about not getting things done. My cupboards are not purged. My books are not sorted. My hair does not get cut. I don’t paint or sew or read or whatever, as much as I want.

The above was started in 2017. Jumping forward to 2019, I can answer my own question. I was tired. So very tired. I learned that tired comes not only from a night, or a month of nights, of not enough sleep, but tired also comes from the incremental piling up of exhausting and stressful events of our lives. My body, my soul, my heart, and my brain were all holding onto different bits of energy from different events, and this energy was heavy and in constant motion. It made me tired. I can only see that now, after two years of shedding most of it, bit by bit.

Now, most of the time, I can see and feel the vestiges of those long-ago events as they are re-awakened by current events. I can recognize them as I feel inexplicably more exhausted than I should be, based on my current situation. I give myself the space to feel as tired as I actually am, not as tired as I think I should be. I give myself permission to stand up to people in my life and say, “yes, I am tired and worn down and part of it comes from being tired and worn down all those years ago. I need rest. I will rest.”

Jump forward again to 2020. I am re-learning how to stand up for myself and I am grateful for the champions in my life that remind me that taking care of my sleep is important.