Listening to my body and slowing down

Not going to lie, I spent a lot of today sleeping. And for me “a lot” really isn’t that much, but certainly a lot more than any typical amount for me.

My husband took the kids out in the late afternoon when I started to just not feel great, and I spent probably an hour on and off being asleep. Then after they were in bed, my husband and I both fell asleep for a good half hour. So, a lot. For me, anyway.

But between the nightmares and general lack of sleep I’ve been getting at night, my body clearly trying to fight something off, and just the intensity and fast pace of life in general, I’m not going to give myself a hard time about it.

If my body needs to rest, I need to listen. No, I don’t need to clean something right now. No, I don’t need to fold the laundry. That can wait.

Lately I’ve been allowing the guilt to creep in just a little bit too much. Feeling guilty or being upset with myself for things that I absolutely cannot control.

Today was a hard day for me physically and mentally. I’m not feeling great, my voice basically doesn’t exist despite not being otherwise “sick”, I just have little to no actual sound coming out. And it hurts just from the extra effort it’s taking for me to try to talk. So I don’t know if I’m actually sick, or if my voice has just decided all on its own to stop working, but either way it’s been exhausting.

I’m doing my best to show up for myself and for my family, but it’s been hard lately. And I think my body is paying the price for the months of ignoring it that I’ve been doing.

It’s 9:15pm currently, and despite my well above average sleep I got today, I am still unreasonably exhausted. I don’t think I can or should attempt my much more typical 12-1am bedtime tonight.

The silver lining of this past week has been my big buddy. He got himself neutered a week and a half ago and has been recovering quietly and calmly despite battling a small infection, a very common occurrence in getting an older dog neutered.

He’s been amazing and having him inside with me full time now has been a huge source of comfort for me.

Still, I’m exhausted, and I just want to sleep for maybe 3 days until my body has decided it has recovered from whatever it is that it needs to recover from.