How do you feel when you first wake up?
Mostly, I wake in pain. If the alarm clock doesn't rouse me to alert me to the pain, then its the pain itslef waking me in the dead dawn to tell me the alarm will go off in an hour or so. I hate that feeling, that misery each and every morning as my first awareness, as my body slowly bruns itself up from the inside. And thats nothing to the sense of never having had enough sleep, of still being sooooo very tired, and just wanting to stay sill under the covers although I know I won't get back to sleep.
Thats why I keep my alarm set a little earlier than otherwise nessisary, and keep my lap top close, so if needs be, I can just wake myself with some mindless facebook games, or 'supercollape' or such. Something to do to be sitting up in bed, not still sleeping, but with the rigours of actually *getting up* defered. - but something thats not so occupying that I can't start mulling over the day.
Because it never takes long to get mentally awake properly, and most days, I start thinking about work first, about the day ahead. The classes I will be teaching, and the resources I need for each session. The check list for work starts while I'm still under the covers with my eyes closed thinking cooling thoughts and sending them down to my overheated leg bones. I'm enjoying teaching so very much this term. Without the managment roles on top, I have been focusing so much more on what I am actually doing with the students, pushing the boat out with my teaching and assessment strategies, and really feel like I'm getitng somewhere. My days are very long at the moment. I have a wednesday class from 10 until 12, as my only teaching hours, and yesterday, becasue assessments are looming, I set tutorial times for all the students for the rest of the day, so actually taught in relation to that class non-stop from 10 am until 5pm. By the time I finished I felt like a steam roller had gone over me, it was physically, mentally and emotionally challenging on many levels - but oh so rewarding.
If its a weekend, I'll still probably wake thinking about work, planning lectures on a broader sense, checking mentally that the lectures I'm giving this week are going in the direction I want them to be going in, relative to the lectures for the rest of the term. Making strategies for any preperation work I need to be tacking. But it doesn't take long to move from that to more immidiate issues. Dating is great. What are we doing together today? What fun have we planned?
Today, after work, I'm heading to a meeting at St. Pauls, and from there to T's house. Tomorrow, we head off on a long weekend revolving around her work christmas do, staying in a hotel together, and partying the night away friday night. I'm actually quite nervous about this, 'work do's or any kind of dressy up events are not my thing, But its very important to her, so I'm getting behind it with as much excitment as I can.
And this, as S so well explains, is the difference between people with long term illnesses or disabilities and those who don't. If you are able bodied and get the flu you feel utterly miserable. For the whole time you have the flu. So people with long term issues should feel utterly miserable the whole time, right? Wrong.
I do wake each and every morning to pain, and that is hideous. But 20 mins or half an hour later I get out of bed feeling remarkably cheerful, often with quite furiously intense thoughts, but ones with direction, focus and positivity. And this morning, I feel, both of those stories are equally important to tell, they have both burned themsleves into my bones as such, they are both so part of my life right now. I hate that first sense of waking up, that first feeling of burning in my legs that intrudes on my sleep, and its toxic promise of more pain to come. I wish I could scream about it at the top of my lungs, and tell the entire world, at times. But equally, and this is just as important, I love that morning sense of a day of potential that follows. As I take the time that the black beast makes me take, where I'm lying in bed and mulling over what the next turn of the earth will bring.
But enough on that - right now, I've had a good indulgent couple of hours here messing with the computer. I need to shower, get to the shop, pick up my dress for tomorrow that I reserved, get in to work for 12 for a trade union meeting, spend the rest of the afternoon at my desk, in to St. Pauls for six, and then on to Theresa's. Busy times, and it will exhaust me so that by late evening I will feel like crying from pure tirdness, but each step along the way will be worth the effort. So off I go.
Thats why I keep my alarm set a little earlier than otherwise nessisary, and keep my lap top close, so if needs be, I can just wake myself with some mindless facebook games, or 'supercollape' or such. Something to do to be sitting up in bed, not still sleeping, but with the rigours of actually *getting up* defered. - but something thats not so occupying that I can't start mulling over the day.
Because it never takes long to get mentally awake properly, and most days, I start thinking about work first, about the day ahead. The classes I will be teaching, and the resources I need for each session. The check list for work starts while I'm still under the covers with my eyes closed thinking cooling thoughts and sending them down to my overheated leg bones. I'm enjoying teaching so very much this term. Without the managment roles on top, I have been focusing so much more on what I am actually doing with the students, pushing the boat out with my teaching and assessment strategies, and really feel like I'm getitng somewhere. My days are very long at the moment. I have a wednesday class from 10 until 12, as my only teaching hours, and yesterday, becasue assessments are looming, I set tutorial times for all the students for the rest of the day, so actually taught in relation to that class non-stop from 10 am until 5pm. By the time I finished I felt like a steam roller had gone over me, it was physically, mentally and emotionally challenging on many levels - but oh so rewarding.
If its a weekend, I'll still probably wake thinking about work, planning lectures on a broader sense, checking mentally that the lectures I'm giving this week are going in the direction I want them to be going in, relative to the lectures for the rest of the term. Making strategies for any preperation work I need to be tacking. But it doesn't take long to move from that to more immidiate issues. Dating is great. What are we doing together today? What fun have we planned?
Today, after work, I'm heading to a meeting at St. Pauls, and from there to T's house. Tomorrow, we head off on a long weekend revolving around her work christmas do, staying in a hotel together, and partying the night away friday night. I'm actually quite nervous about this, 'work do's or any kind of dressy up events are not my thing, But its very important to her, so I'm getting behind it with as much excitment as I can.
And this, as S so well explains, is the difference between people with long term illnesses or disabilities and those who don't. If you are able bodied and get the flu you feel utterly miserable. For the whole time you have the flu. So people with long term issues should feel utterly miserable the whole time, right? Wrong.
I do wake each and every morning to pain, and that is hideous. But 20 mins or half an hour later I get out of bed feeling remarkably cheerful, often with quite furiously intense thoughts, but ones with direction, focus and positivity. And this morning, I feel, both of those stories are equally important to tell, they have both burned themsleves into my bones as such, they are both so part of my life right now. I hate that first sense of waking up, that first feeling of burning in my legs that intrudes on my sleep, and its toxic promise of more pain to come. I wish I could scream about it at the top of my lungs, and tell the entire world, at times. But equally, and this is just as important, I love that morning sense of a day of potential that follows. As I take the time that the black beast makes me take, where I'm lying in bed and mulling over what the next turn of the earth will bring.
But enough on that - right now, I've had a good indulgent couple of hours here messing with the computer. I need to shower, get to the shop, pick up my dress for tomorrow that I reserved, get in to work for 12 for a trade union meeting, spend the rest of the afternoon at my desk, in to St. Pauls for six, and then on to Theresa's. Busy times, and it will exhaust me so that by late evening I will feel like crying from pure tirdness, but each step along the way will be worth the effort. So off I go.