Midlife Moments

Day 5: I’m sleeping better.

I’ve had five nights of sleep on this program. The first two days were awful, and I was super tired. But after the third night of sleep, my sleep stats are improving. The last two nights I slept through the night. My bedtime is 11:10 PM and I get out of bed at 5:30 AM. I’m not waking up to an alarm yet, but I’m literally waking up sometime between 5:10 AM and 5:30 AM. I feel rested. For the first time this week I felt like running this morning.

My sleep coach, Arielle, is working with me on more positive thinking about my sleep. For as long as I can remember, I have a love/hate relationship with my bed. And, of course, that is a contributor to my insomnia. I go to bed TRYING to sleep. A sleep expert on a podcast asked his host, “Have you ever found yourself trying to digest your food faster?” Of course we don’t. We don’t have control of that. He said we don’t have control of when our body sleeps either. It’s not effective to expend a lot of energy trying to will ourselves to sleep. So now I’m telling myself things like, “I’m doing something positive that will help my sleep in the long run.” “I know this program has helped others, and it will help me, too.” “Having less sleep will not kill me. I’ve functioned like this before.” It helps.

One of the hardest things for me is working at home when I get really sleepy during the day. That bed is right there in the other room, and I know it. But I can’t take a nap. I have to set boundaries with myself about that. Think long-term not short-term. I am noticing I’m tired in the afternoon when I drink more than one cup of coffee in the morning. I’ve been drinking more since I started this. I need to rein that in. The crash is so hard on me. One day I had Matcha in the morning and green tea later. I felt pretty energized all day. There was literally no crash. I’m going to commit to doing that over the weekend to see what a difference it makes.

Another negative side effect is that I’m hungry all the time. I know that when you don’t sleep you crave more food, and it’s gotten a bit out of control the last few days. I eat more and when I’m eating I’m thinking of what I’m going to eat next. It feels like I’m trying to distract myself. Unfortunately, eating too much also makes me sleepy. I’m going to need to stop that, too.

Eventually, I’ll get another 30 minutes tacked onto my sleep schedule. I literally am salivating over the thought of 30 more minutes of sleep. But I do love all the free time I have now that I formerly used to toss and turn in bed. I’ve been watching movies, meditating, reading, shopping (not a positive), walking Ashok and talking with friends on the phone. I have a lot of free time.

Right now I’m really tired. I would give my retirement savings to go to bed right now, but I know that’s not a good move for retirement or for my sleep journey. The program is 90 days, and I need to commit to following instructions and trusting the program. “I am taking care of myself by doing something positive about my sleep.” And that’s a worthwhile investment. I have one hour and 15 minutes before my head can hit the pillow. Hmmmm…. Ashok, you want to go for an evening walk?

Every year I dread the Summer Solstice. Everybody loves these long days to get outside and enjoy life until bedtime. It’s the bedtime part that I hate. My body is so sensitive to light and the heat of summer that my body doesn’t rest very well. I long for the Summer Solstice to peak so the days get shorter and my sleep can get longer and longer.

If I drink too much caffeine – at any time of the day – my anxiety ramps up and I can’t sleep. I can go to sleep, but I wake up at 3 or 4 and am wired. If I eat too much sugar or white flour I wake up in the middle of the night with anxiety. If I’m worried about work, I wake up and ruminate on what I need to do to solve problems. If I exercise too much, I have trouble sleeping. If I don’t exercise enough, I have trouble sleeping. The truth is I’m like Goldilocks’ porridge dilemna when it comes to sleep. I have to do everything just right in order to blissfully slumber through the night and feel rested the next day.

I also know I’m not alone. Many of my friends struggle with sleep. In fact, I got off a phone call Sunday with one friend who was trying to troubleshoot her insomnia and got right on another call with a different friend with the same problem. It super common, and it’s very hard to fix. I have tried so many things to fix my sleep. It impacts my ability to work, my happiness, my eating, my mood and my energy for everything else in my life. I am green with envy of my friends who sleep like they were teenagers. Oddly enough, the only time I sleep like that now is when I’m sleeping in a tent. The outdoors is like a drug to me.

My friend Sallie mentioned she is doing a Sleep program called Sleep Reset. The main tool is Sleep Restriction. You shorten your sleep time for awhile in the hopes of resetting your sleep cycle. After your body gets used to sleeping better for a short time, you start to increase your sleep time until it’s normal. I had heard about it on a Ten Percent Happier Podcast, and I was immediately intrigued. Besides, I hadn’t slept well for about five days in a row, and I was in a desperate state of mind. So I signed up for the 7-day free trial to see what it was like.

The first night you just do your normal thing so you can submit a sleep log to your sleep coach. I hardly slept at all. So I was exhausted yesterday. I couldn’t take a nap, and I was assigned an 11:10 PM bedtime. I was miserable all day. I meditated, took many walks, went for a run, wrote in my journal, watched a movie, cleaned my kitchen and tried to pay attention at work. I even got a chance to text with my friend Alayne in Texas who is a night owl. We never get to text because we are on opposite schedules and different time zones. I was so excited when 11:10 PM came that I jumped in bed and….. lay awake for an hour. OMG. I was so mad. I finally fell asleep and woke up 45 minutes before my 5:30 AM wakeup time. The rule is I can only stay in bed for 15 minutes if I can’t sleep. I dragged my sleepy ass out of bed at 5 AM wishing I could go back to sleep. But I’m committed. If this thing can help improve my insomnia I will take any short-term pain.

During the time I was asleep, I did sleep really soundly. I felt much better today than yesterday. I needed less coffee which helped, and I didn’t get nearly as sleepy. I also did some troubleshooting with my coach on the app. Arielle is from Florida, and she was very helpful in providing me some resources to help me fall back to sleep should I wake up too early in the morning. I have another two hours before I can go to bed tonight, so I’ll get familiar with those techniques just in case. But am I sleepy right now. Typically I’d be going to bed right now, and my body is going please, please, please…. can we go to sleep? No. We cannot. Even Ashok is walking around confused as to why I’m staying up so late. But it’s great to have all of this extra time. I think I may go see a movie tomorrow night!

Now that I’ll be staying up later, I can post updates on my insomnia journey. I could probably write a novel if I wasn’t so exhausted. I hope soon to be snoozing away on a regular basis but until then I’ll be killin’ time!

When we walked out of Top Gun last night, we ran over to the marketing signage in the lobby to take a picture. A man was there with his family. He offered to take our picture, and we took a family pic for them. Everybody was laughing and trying to get next to “Tom”. We got a couple of pictures, and I felt a little taken aback at how all that transpired. Was that what the world used to feel like? Social celebrations and sharing joy with strangers at close range without a thought about it? . On the way home, I said a little prayer of gratitude that life as we once knew it may have returned. I also felt grateful for the silver lining of the pandemic that has made me very aware of how lucky we are. Sometimes we have to lose something in order to appreciate it.

I looked forward to this weekend all week. It’s been cold and Friday night I was wearing a coat to walk Ashok. But Saturday would be in the 60s, Sunday in the 70s and Monday in the 80s. It seemed that summer was coming and with it the glorious weather of Southwest Michigan. I even looked forward to parking issues due to the throngs of tourists landing in St. Joseph. Businesses would be awash in money and work and all of the summer activities will be in full swing. To celebrate, I got out early for a long run Saturday and said hi to everyone I met.

I headed down to the Farmer’s Market and bought some flowers from my friend Stephanie and a great cup of coffee from Brian at Forte Coffee. It tasted even better than normal after being dispensed in the sunshine on the bluff. I had no real plans for Saturday, so I packed up Ashok and we headed to Saugatuck for a walk around town. She was perkier than I have seen her lately and enjoyed the treats laid out in bowls from the local businesses. Later I went to the movie theater for the first time since 2019 and saw Downton Abbey: New Era. It was a great movie and it was such a treat to do something that I loved doing pre-pandemic. Our Celebration Cinema has those big reclining seats and I was in my happy place.

Saugatuck was hopping!!

I met my friend Becky for breakfast Sunday and we were talking so much we forgot to pay the check. Luckily she was shopping next door and the poor waiter had to confront her about it. She apologized profusely and paid him. I texted her when I realized it, and we laughed about starting a life of crime early in the weekend. I stopped by Home Depot to order some new countertops for my kitchen before heading to Kalamazoo to have lunch with my friend Liz and see Top Gun: Maverick. We were dying to eat at Los Brothers Taco Shop but were bummed to see that it was closed for the weekend. We were hungry and headed to the closest thing we could find – a Southern eatery called Ty’s Joint.

We asked for suggestions, and Tyrone (one of the owners) pointed out highlights of the menu. Like a good Southerner I chose a bunch of sides for a meal. Collard greens, mac and cheese, cornbread dressing with chicken and fried okra made my mouth water. Liz ordered the perch and catfish plate for us to share and with the candied yams and corn as sides. You gotta have sides!! Tyrone said all of it was delicious, but the collard greens were the best. We had a mountain of food, and OMG it was perhaps the best food I have put in my mouth in awhile. My favorites were the cornbread dressing and candied yams. But the collard greens had a little spice that made them stand out from the ones I’ve typically eaten in the South, and the fried okra tasted just like home.

I met the family after we ate. Tyler and Nikki (his cousin) started the restaurant a year ago, and it’s been very successful so far. The neighborhood regulars are a huge support, and the delivery services have helped them get introduced beyond the immediate vicinity. Apparently Nikki has always loved cooking mountains of this yummy soul food, and she and Tyrone had always joked that they were going to open a restaurant one day. It wasn’t much of a joke because they’ve done it, and I’m so glad they did. Tyrone said they pride themselves on quality ingredients and won’t scrimp. “When people are used to eating this soul food they can tell when you cut corners,” he said. I will return and I hope soon. We were so full we missed the peach cobbler, but he said we have to try it. I’ll tell you about it when I do!

This morning I ran again. (I needed to after all that food!) I’m actually signed up for several races this summer and one in the fall. I’m happy to have had the break from running but am equally excited to be back racing. It feels good in my body, and it’s fun to plan destination runs with friends. I loaded up Ashok again intending to go for a walk at Holland State Park. The traffic was so snarled before I got to the park that we turned around and went to Sanctuary Woods, a Nature Preserve Liz and I discovered this winter. We were literally the only people in this beautiful little park and enjoyed a nice long hike in the woods.

I’ve had a hankering for a hot dog at the Root Beer Barrel in Douglas, so we stopped there on the way home. I struck up a conversation with a couple from Chicago who was driving through to go to the Upper Peninsula. I gave them some suggestions for their trip and ordered a New Yorker Dog which is basically a Reuben with a hot dog. Ashok got her own weiner, and she was happy as a clam. It was a perfect sunny afternoon, and all of the patrons were chatting with each other in the excitement of being at a hot dog joint in Southwest Michigan on a sunny summer day. Life just doesn’t get much better than that.

I hope you had a great weekend. I know there’s a lot to worry about right now, but we have to go on living and enjoying the simple pleasures we have. There are many people who made these freedoms possible by sacrificing their lives and the lives of their loved ones. We are honoring them and their sacrifices today in the only way we know how. Thank you for the gifts of freedom.

I actually forgot about going to movies in a movie theater. I hadn’t been to a movie theater since 2019, and I’m not even sure how many movies I saw that year. But I really liked going to movies. I would scour the movie listings to see if anything was playing and head over on a Saturday afternoon for some popcorn and entertainment. There’s something about a story on the big screen that puts me in a better place if only for awhile. So this week on Stephen Colbert, he interviewed the actress that plays Penny Benjamin in Top Gun: Maverick. Oh yeah…. that volleyball scene brings back some great memories.

I texted my friend Liz and asked her if she wanted to go. After a minute reflecting on her distaste for some of Tom Cruise’s antics, she decided she’d let that go and take a trip down memory lane. After all, the Cannes Film Festival gave Cruise a 5-min standing ovation, and the reviews have been downright glowing. Maybe it would live up to the hype. We booked tickets at the IMAX to get the full experience and Liz suggested we watch the original on Netflix as a primer.

As soon as I started watching the original, I started having flashbacks of my life in 1986. I was a teacher at a public school in Jacksonville, Florida. I was 25 years old and two years into my 11 year marriage to my first husband. I knew nothing. I knew I had a drinking problem but had no idea what to do about it. All of my childhood stuff was bubbling up unchecked. Seeing a movie with a pretty young woman groveling at the washboard abs of a squadron of hot, sweaty young men was the kind of fantasy that made me forget the my fears about the future. All of my life was before me. I was scared to death I wouldn’t be able to measure up and was too afraid to talk about it. Fantasy was always welcome.

Shirtless muscle men in an obviously over-sexualized story with very little plot did not have the same effect on me this time. It seemed silly. The music was good, but I wasn’t all that impressed with the stilted acting and obvious one-liners meant to move the story along. They all looked so young and were so focused on stupid things. Now I know that the fairy tales don’t really have a happy ending and not everybody makes it out alive. Hot bodies age and get sick. Love is much more complicated when you have to pay the bills and deal with another person’s complicated issues in the midst of dealing with your own. When Kelly McGillis’ character says, “This is going to be complicated,” I laughed out loud. You have no idea, young lady.

All that aside, I was super excited today to see the movie. The theater was packed and I wondered how many had seen the original when they were young and naive. Those were the days when movies only premiered on the big screen. You could watch it at home but not until it made its way to network television years later. Everybody went to the movies. Tom still looks great, of course. His body is a tad less ripped, and his rugged jaw has a softer edge. But that smile that lights up a room is exactly the same. Maverick is still a bit cocky, but it is not the same cocky of the young 21-year old character emboldened by increasing risk-taking. His eyes reflected a sadness of a life lived hard, and he had more wisdom in his decision-making.

I won’t get into the story too much, but all of the old characters were there – some in person and some just in flashbacks or reflections. Maverick’s matured complexity was so compelling that I could hardly separate it from my own. Life at 61 has so much more meaning than it it did at 25. Everything that happens is seen in the context of what has come before. Everything also weighs heavily against the reality that there is less life before me than there is behind me. A change of course is not as easy to pull off.

In May of 1986 when the original premiered, the Chernobyl accident had just occurred, and the space shuttle had blown up in a public spectacle watched by millions of schoolchildren. It would be one of the first national tragedies that I lived through as an adult. Now there have been so many tragedies both personally and professionally that it seems like tragedies are the norm. I’ve weathered and grown from losses and can still be moved to tears when a memory strikes a nerve. My memory of my drive home from the first Top Gun brought back the happy laughter of that marriage and the never-ending sadness of losing it. One cannot be separated from the other.

They say that this part of our lives has the potential to be the most creative. I see it in this version of Top Gun. The characters had so much more depth. The plot was much more focused and suspenseful. Of course the special effects have vastly improved over the years. The writing was better and felt more real. The love story was tender and rich with the fullness of two people who have known each other for a long time. A palpable sadness hung over the characters as they looked back on their lives of the last 35 years. It all felt very real to me.

Is a movie different depending on where the viewer is in their life? At this age I am keenly aware that I am lucky to be alive. Not everyone gets to live this long, and every day I wake up is another chance at living the life of my dreams. Those dreams look a lot different than they did at 25. I expected more of the characters in this movie, and they delivered. I actually really want to see it again. But for my 25-year-old self, the football scene in today’s version delivered the goods as well as the volleyball scene in the first one. I groaned when I was watching it. Maybe I still dream about some of the same things as I did when I was 25. It’s just that my expectation of how it will all turn out is a bit more realistic.

It is so easy to feel helpless. My heart is broken over the senseless massacres of the last couple weeks. There’s no need to rehash all the details. Our government doesn’t seem to have the capacity to fix this. The fixation on that route is not prompting results, and yet we still keep focusing on that solution. That’s the definition of insanity. Congress has two jobs – to make laws and allocate money. Unfortunately they have a bigger concern to stay in office so they are more focused on that than anything. And in case you haven’t read the news in the last decade, many of them are idiots. I wouldn’t trust most of them in my house. Why would I trust them to solve a complex issue like gun violence?

One of my favorite podcasts is On the Media. I’m an aspiring journalist who is forever interested in journalism and how it works. On the Media covers the media’s coverage on current issues. For all of you that hate the media, you really should take a listen. You might discover there are constructive criticisms of the media that improve it and some of the more common criticisms are just not true. Just like our beliefs on how to fix gun violence, you might find there are other ways to look at a problem.

This week On the Media discussed the media’s coverage of mass shootings. Mass shootings are 1% of the deaths caused by firearms. 99% of the deaths by firearms are suicides and homicides. A much more productive strategy to solve gun violence would be to focus on the 99%. It opened my eyes to a different way of thinking about this problem and the insanity of our current fixation on politicians. This morning after watching numerous comedians rant and rave about the witless Ted Cruz and his inability to act like a grown man, I googled the question “Is anybody really studying gun violence?” I don’t think politicians will ever solve this problem, and I’m a firm believer in looking to other solutions when something is not working.

Did you know the CDC studies deaths by gun violence or violence in general? To state the obvious, it is a public health issue. Their website has a whole section of resources for communities that could lower the volume on the root causes of violence. They have videos and infographics which help people understand suicide and the causes of homicide. Did you know that suicide is the second largest cause of death among people aged 10-44. Need to know how to help someone who is depressed or showing signs that could lead to suicide. Don’t know what those signs are? Check out the website below.

Fast Facts: Firearm Violence Prevention

Suicide Prevention

One of the biggest issues we have in this country that increases a predisposition to violence or despair is Adverse Childhood Experiences. In other words abuse and neglect and exposure to violence leads to more of the same. Feel helpless about that, too? Well there are things that a community can do and there are things we as individuals can do to combat that. The CDC link above has a lot of resources to help.

It is demoralizing to feel helpless to this problem and and a host of other seemingly unresolvable problems. Health care is horrible and unaffordable in most cases. I pray that I don’t get cancer or another dreaded disease that will wipe me out financially in my old age. Women and minorities are unprotected and getting more and more vulnerable. Our patriarchal society has not worked for most people and has put many of us in danger in workplaces, churches, homes and communities. It is evident that the Baptist and Catholic Churches of my youth were systematically protecting predators on women and youth. I’ve experienced it myself and just had to keep quiet because speaking up was much more dangerous. Childhood abuse is so prevalent that people are primed to think it is normal family life. These early experiences lead to despair, anxiety, depression, rage and other developmental issues. Meanwhile the climate is going to burn us all to death.

I wish somebody had answers to the mass shooting issue, but the solution appears complex. And it is unique to our country. Maybe solving the helplessness problem would help prevent suicide and homicide – an even greater threat to our society. Maybe feeling hopeful in any small way and connecting with someone we can help would help reduce rage and anger at others. Perhaps getting help for our own issues would inch us toward greater compassion for others in our society. I don’t pretend to have the answer. But I do feel a little more hopeful today knowing that the CDC has resources that might help me and my community inch closer to a solution. I learned a long time ago that you can’t depend on undependable people. Ted Cruz is an undependable person and he’s not the answer. Let’s move on.