Raincity Mama

I’ve always been a pro­cras­ti­na­tor. I mar­ried a pro­cras­ti­na­tor. I hope that I can pre­vent my kids from becom­ing pro­cras­ti­na­tors. (Can I use the word pro­cras­ti­na­tor again??? Procrastinator!)

I hate how leav­ing things unstarted or unfin­ished makes me feel. The shame I feel when I real­ize that I’m not doing what needs to be done is awful, but sadly usu­ally it isn’t enough to make me get off my ass and just do it, what­ever “it” is.

I feel like pro­cras­ti­na­tion is tak­ing over my life. Sure, I man­age to get enjoy­able, pleas­ant tasks done. The last piece of cake needs to be eaten? Done. The PVR is full of tv shows? No prob­lem, I can sit and watch tv. The kids bed­room needs to be cleared out so that they can actu­ally sleep in there? Huh, didn’t you say there was cake?

Well. I’m reach­ing the end of my rope. I need to make some changes in my life. I’m tired of how putting things off makes me feel. I decided to take the bull by the horns and I’ve started to tackle on of the big scary things that I’ve been putting off, my taxes. It’s going to take some work but I will get them done. I felt in incred­i­ble mix of emo­tions once I got the ball rolling, exhil­a­ra­tion, fear, shame, relief, the list goes on. I con­sider get­ting this sorted out to be a huge step in the right direc­tion in leav­ing my pro­cras­ti­nat­ing ways behind. Although I do have to say that it has taken me two days to write this post. I’d say that I need to take baby steps but big steps are required if I’m really going to change me ways.

Is pro­cras­ti­na­tion an issue for you? How to you deal with get­ting stuff done?

At work we were talk­ing about sleep, or lack thereof, and being tired. I tried telling my co-workers that I win at being tired. I’m a pro­fes­sional at walk­ing around sleep deprived. They didn’t believe me so I told them what it means to be really tired.

When the babies where new­borns it was hard. I’ve blocked out for­got­ten a lot about those early days but I do recall that I was always extremely tired. I’m sur­prised that I didn’t spon­ta­neously fall asleep. I remem­ber being in my room try­ing to nap while my par­ents or hus­band were watch­ing the kids. I remem­ber feel­ing frus­trated hear­ing the ryth­mic thump of house music pump away while I tried to drift off to sleep. This went on for days, maybe weeks, I’m not really sure. I remem­ber think­ing that it was odd that I’d notice the music when I was try­ing to sleep but I couldn’t hear it when I was down­stairs with the kids. I’d for­get about it and carry on with the chaos that was my life.

I finally asked my hus­band about it one day after it had tak­ing me a long time to fall asleep. He looked con­fused. He wasn’t play­ing any music and he said that the neigh­bours weren’t play­ing any music. Both of us were quite puz­zled and he was a tiny bit wor­ried. I received an email from the mul­ti­ples group that I belong to and there was a thread about sleep depri­va­tion and one woman wrote about being so tired that she started hear­ing “things”. I was aghast that any­one would let them­selves get so tired that they’d start hear­ing voices. I told the hus­band about this poor woman and you should have seen the look on his face. Such a mix­ture of pity and con­cern. He pointed out that I was hear­ing non-existent house music and that I was in fact hav­ing audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions too.

I was dumb­struck! No, it wasn’t some­thing I could be in denial about. I was hear­ing this music and it was not real. My hus­band and par­ents tried to ensure that I’d be able to get naps in more often and the hal­lu­ci­na­tions went away. I’m still sleep deprived on a daily basis, but it’s get­ting bet­ter. On a good day I get almost four hours of sleep in a row but when the kids are sick I get two to three hours in a row. As long as the music doesn’t start up again I think I’m doing pretty good. I rarely drive, so I’m not wor­ried about falling asleep behind the wheel.

So my announce­ment to my co-workers that I’ve been so tired that I’ve heard non-existent music was met with smirks and weird looks. It wasn’t until I told them that it was house music that they burst out laugh­ing. Come on, it is funny. I can’t think any­one would fall asleep lis­ten­ing to house music. Now I’m on the look­out for the prankster that is going to start play­ing house music qui­etly in their cube in an effort to see me freak out. I’ll just bob my head along to the nst nst nst beat, feel­ing thank­ful that those days are behind me and I have the abil­ity to laugh at what was a very tir­ing phase of my life.

What is the most tired you’ve ever been? Have you ever expe­ri­enced audi­tory hal­lu­ci­na­tions? Come on, share your story.

I’m tak­ing the plunge and start­ing the love list meme. I think it can be telling to see what oth­ers put on their lists and I’ve always wanted to join in but I usu­ally over-think it and never post any­thing. Here’s what I’m lov­ing today:

• kitchen shears that come apart for cleaning.
• watch­ing the kids play in the garden.
• the smell of fresh cut grass.
• a gar­den full of bloom­ing tulips and daffodils.
• choco­late cake
• the smell of my hus­band just out of the shower.
• cof­fee
• walk­ing under the cherry blossoms.

Well, what’s on your love list? Link to your list in the comments.

Over the past week two women I know on Twit­ter have lost their chil­dren. It has left me heart­bro­ken. No, I don’t know these women per­son­ally, but their loss has still moved me. I wanted to come here and write some­thing elo­quent, but now that I sit here no words seem appropriate.

My own chil­dren have been so lucky. I have been so lucky. So many things have gone right for us. There were so many moments when things could have turned out dif­fer­ently, but they didn’t, and my chil­dren sleep safely in bed. I am so very grate­ful for my fam­ily. I am gra­teul for our health. I will snug­gle my kids closely tonight.