Don’t tell me you’re tired

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I would be the mother earth zen mum I always thought I would be, pre kids, if I just had a proper night’s sleep. 

It’s easily been over 7 years since I slept through the night.

First it was the pissing every single hour during early pregnancy for no apparent reason even if you haven’t drank in hours.

Then the second and third trimester the gaviscon junkie hourly swig to keep the wretched heartburn at bay. All this alongside being kicked in the spleen by a womb demon that is partial to an early hours rave. 

Then you have a newborn, who essentially only sleeps during the day or in your arms and feeds like a gremlin once night time arrives, so sleep in those first few months is incredibly scarce. But of course you expect it in the early months don’t you? It’s kind of a given. 

Both my kids were breast fed until 2 and 3 years respectively which means they always woke several times a night to feed.

Yes I know some of you smug ass parents out there have fucking wonder babies and kids that boss out a 12 hour stint within a matter of months but mine did not. 

Fun fact- At 6 years old I can literally count on one hand the amount of nights my son has slept through the night and although my daughter largely does, they have some kind of blood oath to conspire against me so one of them will wake without fail. 

I had a few nights away with my friend celebrating our birthdays and in the lead up to it I had real life fantasies about the glory that would be me, spreadeagled in the bed taking up all the space and sleeping a solid 8 hours. Yes, this time was exactly what I needed.

Alas, in the most unjust and twisted self sabotage possible my body decided to wake me even more than usual. I didn’t get longer than a couple of hours at a time before waking and staring into the empty suite, wanting to cry due to the absolute fuckery that is my brain. 

So basically, what I am saying in a long ass way is I am in a perpetual state of tiredness.

You may think “go to bed earlier Sam” get that well needed and deserved rest your mind and body so desperately needs. But that’s the problem you see. Yes I am tired, but I’ll be damned if I am giving up any of MY time.

All day is time dedicated to others.

I need a whole working day’s worth of hours between putting the kids to bed and me heading to the land of nod. Revenge bedtime procrastination is my evening game of choice.  I know I should go to bed. I know it would mean I’d be less tired, but I need to stare endlessly at total fraff on the tv or scroll through nonsense on the Internet in a desperate attempt to regain some control over my life.

Total utter nonsensical stuff.

It is quite ludicrous but I’ve always gone to bed at stupid o’clock since my teens. It all started with the cursed overthinking. An anxious brain with the perpetual need to think over every single scenario and all its potential outcomes, downfalls and meanings. Nobody suffers insomnia like a teenage goth with anxiety issues. 

And then came the years of reckless abandon, the uni years and 20’s where I thought I was indestructible and pretty much tested that theory. I’d finish uni on a Friday, head out for drinks, go clubbing, roll out at 3am to the dreaded hell that was the night buses and make it home with enough time for a coffee and shower before heading to my Saturday job.

And then I trained to be a nurse, working a week of night shifts every month. So yeah, those circadian rhythms of mine are well and truly shot. 

I think I need some time to reground myself, just me in a field, underneath the moon, possibly with a familiar, and wearing something befittingly gothic, to reset this broken mess that is my brain. 

But in the meantime, Please don’t tell me you’re tired if you have no kids and you work a standard 9-5 and if you’re not unwell. Even if you are actually really very tired. Because this far from zen, overtired and stressed mum, will have to go on a rant resembling everything above. And I guarantee, I win.