More time is not the answer…

My toenails need to be cut. My legs needs a shave. My eyebrows need waxing. My hair needs a trim. I failed to shower yesterday, and I’m beginning to think my body’s natural grease production may be just what my humidity-induced frizzy hair wants. I need more time. I need to take time.

My brain awakened before 3 this morning, but I forced myself to stay in bed until the clock, finally, read 3:07. I thought lying in bed pondering potential blog posts or Thanksgiving dinner preparations or the numerous tasks I’ve outlined for the rest of my November days might serve as sheep counting and lull me back to sleep. Instead, my blood starting pounding and my ever-logical mind considered that an extra four hours of housework might be just what I need to get everything done.

“Good morning, good morning, good morning! It’s time to rise and shine.” My control-freak mind adds “and work” to that old camp song and begins to list:

• Repopulating rooms with everything we’d removed for carpet cleaning yesterday
• Laundering a final load of darks and a load of whites, folding, hanging, putting it all away
• Decorating a bedroom I’d dismantled and painted
• Sweeping, mopping, cleaning, organizing
• Pumping gas, depositing a check
• Packing my gym bags for tomorrow
• Dare I consider painting a bathroom?

I am exhausted but awake and typing and envisioning my house after I’ve completed all my chores and trying to look forward to a day when I can rest. But then I remember that following Thanksgiving I’ll be hanging Christmas lights and crafting a letter and photo to send to friends and family. A little shopping. A lot of baking. And, oh, I had determined I’d finish a couple of photo albums over the Christmas holiday.

What can I do with this bucket of paint I just bought?

My friends, this should not be. Even God rested after working for six days. Who am I to think I should work more? If my mind would let me, I could just sleep. My body wants that.

I’ve lied to myself about this apparent inability to rest:

“This is my new normal.”

My new normal is waking daily before my alarm no matter how late I went to bed — but somehow feeling energized and accomplished after yet another self-assigned task is completed. (I don’t know if the end of Daylight Savings or the beginning of NaBloPoMo is more to blame. Yesterday, I was on multitasking overload and failed to click “Save” on my post on the NaBloPoMo Blogher.com site. I posted here and linked to the post there, but a simple failure to click a button meant my post didn’t save there. I nearly cried when I saw that this morning. Of course, that could be the exhaustion speaking.)

I’ve joked with friends about my inability to sleep.

“Well, if I keep getting out of bed at 3:30 in the morning, then when the time changes in March, I won’t have to adjust again.”

Truth be told, I can’t do this until March. I feel tired today. My head hurts. I look at the mounds of work I need to do, and I feel depleted, not energized. A bit overwhelmed, actually.

And yet I’m still thinking I could get started on painting that bathroom.

What is wrong with me?

I could definitely use more time. I just don’t know if that would be in my best interest.

Posts for NaBloPoMo 2015:

1. Why I love my hairstylist…
2. To NaBloPoMo or not to NaBloPoMo? That is the question…
3. No AC November…
4. That dubious gift of an hour…
5. I can’t wait to be discovered…
6. Once an English teacher, always an English teacher…
7. Of mice and men (or when you give a mouse a cookie)…
8. When you replace people with possessions…
9. Do what you know is right…
10. When your eyes are bigger than your weekend…
11. Attempting “The Glad Game”…
12. When the Christian life is a bit too much like a political debate…
13. Vertigo: When the world around you begins to spin…
14. How our Mitsubishi van became blue…
15. If she only knew…
16. When everything feels like straw…
17. Construction criticism (or where have all the detours gone?)…
18. Don’t skimp on the showers…
19. My surprise “happily ever after” …
20. In fact, we are not entitled…
21. The end of the twin era…
22. More time is not always the answer…