(no subject)

Well, here I am, awake again.  It's been a couple of hours, already, and I'm getting past my rage at being sick again.  Maggie turns two on Tuesday, and I've been sick roughly 20 times since she was born.  There are times when the illnesses cause me to be violently depressed.  I might do myself some physical harm if not for the fact that I'm already so tired from being sick that I couldn't muster up the gumption. 

I'm now starting to wonder if this being awake in the middle of the night thing might not instead be something to take advantage of.  An acquaintance, Lise, told me shortly after Maggie was born that Barbara Kingsolver had terrible insomnia after the birth of her first child, and she wrote a novel in those dark hours.  Lise said she was jealous.  It certainly would be great to get a novel written, but not to the point of envying the insomniac.  Or maybe I just don't have my priorities straight.

I don't really have insomnia. But I am restless, in addition to being occasionally sleepless.  I'm trying to figure out how to work certain activities -- writing, exercise, socializing -- back into my life.  I itch for them.  I'm losing patience with the litany of excuses I've accumulated over the years.  I'm purging stuff -- getting rid of old clothes last week, looking forward to getting rid of old books and papers this week.  They're in my way, I can't work around them any longer and I don't want to work with them.  All these years I kept stuff because I might someday want it.  I don't want it.  My desires are more basic than rooting around in old notebooks for a pithy line of text from high school.  I want food, sleep, time to write, and friends back in my life.  And despite currently sitting here sleepless with a sinus headache, I'm actually feeling more optimistic than I have in a long time about finally regaining some of that stuff. 

I'm also feeling a little more optimistic about achieving sleep when I do go back to bed.  Which will be soon.