Insomnia and Women

I can't remember a time when I didn't have hours left at the end of the day when I'm awake and everyone else is sleeping. When the kids were young, these extra hours of quiet, dark solitude were welcome. I love my kids more than the air I need to breath, but all the noisy, frantic energy they produced just sucked the life out of me by the end of the day. It was nice to put them to bed and descend the stairs turning off lights one by one until I reached my favorite chair. To sit and listen to the house settle around me, quiet except for the hum of a ceiling fan motor, or the woosh of the furnace kicking on.

They say that it is how a person recharges that defines whether one is an introvert or an extrovert. Those that need a party, talk, music, an abundance of people to feel really alive and energized are extroverts. Those that need a quiet, dark absence of stimuli of any kind are introverts. I think people are more complicated than that, and I think everyone has both an introverted and extroverted side. I think even that changes at different times in a persons life.

I had lunch with a friend today who said something interesting. We were talking about our daughters and she said that women who continuously improve their life unconsciously make changes and recreate themselves every decade. If you miss the window, you get stuck repeating the same mistakes, in the same rut for another decade. I'm heading into my fifth decade on earth, and with hindsight can look at my own unconscious changes. My 20's were dedicated to motherhood, five kids between 1980 and 1987. In my 30's I was devoted to child rearing, but by the end of that decade I was making strides to re-enter the work force, in any capacity. My 40's have been about connecting with the community again and as they near their end, working in a field that feeds my soul as well as my body. Our daughters are nearing that third decade, without change now, we will see ten more years of their own self-destruction and failure. I wonder if it will help grandgirls mom to share this theory with her?


Wednsday - 11:32 A.M.
In my youth I could survive a night of insomnia looking none the worse for wear... not so here in my middle age. This cat looks better than I do today. I will be very glad when my assistant gets back from vacation. I'm changing her title to Goddess of the Office or Queen High Ruler of the Finance Dept. I've always known she worked harder than any three people, but when she's gone like like this, I really feel the impact of her loss.