It's overrated anyway!

Sleep deprivation is a bitch! She decides to visit me more often than I’d like; offering me a menu of symptoms to choose from and endure such as blurry-eyes, brain-fog, feeling unfocused or disengaged. Just fabulous when I have 4 small children to manage and a husband to feed grapes to!
These days I’ve come to master the art of ‘pressing on’ with said tiredness. It’s become habitual behaviour. I don’t remember a day without it. Those of you who have read my blogs before will know I wake to a shop bought Starbucks cold coffee every morning. Standard!

The truth is, after yet another day of several school runs, bum wipes and hoovering and moping the floor countless times; nappy changes, food prepping, and general household upkeep, having coped well with little energy and even less enthusiasm, I still manage to function remarkably well and get shit done!
The trouble is, I get suddenly cranky when I’m overtired. I crash and burn some evenings, sometimes before I’ve done all the necessary chores and readied things for the next day. It’s instant, as is the change, reflecting the true Gemini that I am. One minute I’m calm, just knackered!; the next I’m raging bonkers and moody as hell. It’s like a switch has been flicked in my mind... and I simply cannot cope any longer.

I always describe tiredness as being in two categories. a) A kind of comfortable, almost cozy tiredness. One that enables you to stick a couple of fingers up to it and carry on, even if it is a little difficult to keep motivated. One that almost spurs you on with encouraging ‘pats on the back’ as you tick off the next task on the ‘to-do’ list. b) Damn-right debilitating! The kind where you feel you can simply no longer function. Where you stumble around with stingy eyes, starting ten jobs at once but never get anywhere close to completing any one of them. The kind that makes you feel extremely exhausted; overly emotional; detached almost. For me, there is no in-between. And when the latter happens, I’m pretty much useless and it really affects me. Mentally as well as physically.

I remember a time, before I had children, before I was married. I had recently split from a 3 year relationship that just wasn’t right for me, and at just 27 years old I decided that I had been far too boring for an ‘under 30’. I’d been a fully qualified teacher for about 3 years, and I had well and truly fallen into the ‘Eat - Sleep - WORK - Repeat trap. It was time I added some RAVE into the mix; just as Fat Boy Slim suggested!
So. In a bid to snatch back some of my youth and ‘live whilst I’m still (relatively) young’, mid-week socialising became a thing! I even went clubbing on a school night - and for me this literally meant on a school night!
I’ve never ever been much of a drinker. A bad teenage experience which began in the hotspot for meeting your mates (a.k.a the local park) and ended with me sleeping in a bus stop shelter, just about ruined any chances of me having a nice relationship with alcohol! (we’ve all been there...haven’t we?) Chuck in the fact that I’m a massive control freak and cannot stand the feeling of being out of sorts (a.k.a drunk) and a real light weight, means that excessive drinking is just not something I choose to do. A sophisticated glass of red is my limit these days. I’m also partial to a Baileys on ice, or mostly a cheeky swig straight from the bottle - classy.
A weekly visit to a nightclub some 30 miles away from home (so as not to bump into any of my A level students, or worse still some GCSE ones!) saw me home and in bed by 3 am; up again by 7. I felt bloody great! I felt alive! I thrived on the buzz of the great time I had allowed myself, on being able to dance the night away whilst everyone else was sleeping. I drank nothing more than a boring old coke with an added slice of lemon - exciting! or a bottle of still water as I’d always be driving. Ok, maybe I needed an early night proceeding my midnight shenanigans but they didn’t affect me, or my work whatsoever! My colleagues commented on my ‘fresh face’ and my ability to ‘carry on’; even if my eyes had begun to sting at lunchtime and I still had two periods of hyperactive kids to get through.
Fast forward 10 years... and I am in awe of that twenty something year old who ‘bossed’ a day at work and a parents evening on top of that, with little sleep.

Then there was the time when my now husband was still living in London and I was travelling between home, work and my second residence with him. All in all this was about a one-hundred mile round trip - and I did this journey back and fourth all week long. There was a particular period of time when I was seriously injured with a long standing lower back issue. In my profession and in my field of the Performing Arts, my job and career pretty much relied on my body being in tip-top condition, and so my boss kindly supported my medical programme for the next few months whilst I fixed myself. Darling husband (then fiancé) sought out the best treatment money could buy and got me a consultation at Harley Street. Cue a couple of months treatment, three times a week. Up at 5 am to shower and get in the car by 6. Drive through (very) early morning traffic to reach the city and my appointment arrival at Harley Street chiropractors for 7 am. In and out after three swift ‘cracks’ and I’d be back in the car by 7.15 and ready to make the hundred-or-so mile trip back to work; just in time for my first teaching period at 9.15 am. This journey consisted of back road short cuts, that I had come to master, through morning rush hour traffic in the middle of London, and mostly motorways (that tend to grind to a halt, often, and for no apparent reason!)
After work I’d either travel the 40 miles home to where I lived or boss it back up the motorway to repeat the entire trip again the next morning. How I managed this insane schedule for so long I’ll never know!

These days, a full night of uninterrupted sleep is very much a thing of the past. Sadly, on average I wake at least 4 times a night. On a bad night it can be up to 7 or 8. And it’s not just the baby waking me for a feed (which really isn’t a feed, more a comfort, and where I become a human dummy!). Even in her sleepy state, number 1 chooses to descend from her top bunk bed using some sort of gymnastic method; resulting in an almighty thud on the floor on her way down to the loo. Number 2 can often be heard sleep taking if not shouting as she dreams - loudly! Add into the mix a 3 year old with growing pains or who wakes to demand a quick cuddle but who proceeds to prod and poke me for the next hour or so, as I dodge head butts and elbow digs in my delirious state, and broken sleep is now my norm. Solid sleep is just a thing of the past. Something I took for granted.

I am no good when I’m tired.
Lack of sleep, I’ve come to understand, leaves me with little patience, feeling distant and often battling a confidence crisis about something or other. The way I deal with this is not ideal; not in my busy life. I tend to shy away, shut down and almost ignore what’s going on around me. Doubting my abilities. Doubting my choices. Just doubting. I selfishly allow my husband to deal with the carnage of 4 dependable children around me, and I admire his ability to do so with little sleep himself. The kids pop in and out of my ‘bubble’ where I actively snatch quick kisses upon my request (to which they always oblige-bless them) as a means to silently apologise to them for my absence and lack of active mothering for this short period of time. They have no idea that I’m whispering an internal ‘sorry’ to their souls. I feel incredibly guilty, even if my state is down to the little sleep thieves!

I am aware that I’ve painted a picture of doom here! It’s not all bad. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Life is good, life is precious! Yes I’m tired, a lot; It’s just life isn’t it. Life as a busy mum.... but you know what... I wouldn’t change it for the world!