The
last time I drove to my brother’s house to practice music, I noticed that the
gas gauge on my car was slowly sinking toward the big E. I didn’t want to go through town to fill up my tank, so I made
the decision to head home. I knew that my next trip would have to be to the gas
station.
I
sometimes feel as if the big E is permanently
attached to my body. I’m often exhausted, and regardless of all the tasks I
should be working on, I make my way to the recliner to watch TV, code for “take
a nap.” When I take a nap, it does help make up for my lack of sleep at night.
My
alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m. to have quiet time before the day starts. The
problem with getting up early is that most nights, I stay up until the witching
hour. Then, I feed and walk the dog, fix the coffee pot for the next morning,
fill our water containers to put at our bedsides, take my medicine and make
sure Harold has taken his. Finally, I put on my pj’s (if I’m not already
wearing them), brush my teeth and use my Water Pik. The timeframe that all this
preparation for bed is often determined by how long the dog takes. Once I’m in
bed, I read until I’m sleepy enough that I can shut my eyes and drift away.
My
short nights are a carryover from my caregiving days. Jim would only sleep
about four hours a night, and that meant I slept about four hours each night. I
didn’t often have the luxury of a nap since I worked fulltime. At work, I
coffeed and went through the days like a buzz saw. At home, I ran on empty on a
regular basis and zombied my way through the weekends and evenings.
Life
can be exhausting at times and it takes all the energy I can muster, and more.
It’s staying at a task for one more hour, complete one more project, push it to
the limit, and cross another item off the To-Do List.
Lately,
as if there isn’t enough to do, we are completely renovating our rental house.
Daily decisions have to be made until my head is spinning from the effort. We
are flooded with bids, bills, and various contractors. By default, one
trustworthy contractor makes sure that the other contractors do what they are
supposed to do. We’re nearing the goal line on the inside, now for the outside.
I will be so thankful when the house is finished and rented.
The
main difference between the rental and the house that Jim and I built is that
we did almost all the work ourselves. It took us a lot longer since we tried to
pay as we went. We finally broke down and made a small loan to finish the
inside. Every spare moment was spend building on the house, but when we looked
at what we had accomplished it was amazing.
The
thing about running on empty—when you fill the tank, you can go for miles and
miles before the gauge shows the big E
again.
Copyright © Oct
2023 by L.S. Fisher
http://earlyonset.blogspot.com
#ENDALZ