This is Exhausting: Reentering Society
No amount of lavender spray will make up for a mid-week concert.
I didn’t write last week because I went to a concert on Tuesday.
Which meant that my Wednesday morning was about catching up on sleep, so my morning workout shifted to the evening.
Which meant that I had to do two workouts in 24 hours and go again Thursday morning, because I had a work dinner Thursday night. (With drinks with friends afterward.)
And then it was Friday and all hell broke loose with the weekend in front of us.
I had fun last week, sure, but oh my god it wiped me out. Like, it’s now Monday, and I’m only looking forward to eating dinner and going to sleep. I can’t figure out if it’s because a) the pandemic shifted our threshold for how much *~fUn~- we can take b) I just turned 37 and this is life now or c) both.
When I was at that concert on Tuesday, it was pretty low-key — a crowd of maybe 500 people, mostly in their 30s and 40s, hanging out with plenty of space. No moshpits here.
But when the lights went down at 9:30pm and we were waiting for the band to go on, all I could think was, I’m usually asleep by now.
I spent the next 90 minutes dancing, which was actually just me bending my knees to keep them from being sore. (I specifically wore my thickest New Balance sneakers to prepare for the event.) It was two levels below jazzercize; I moved my body to the music but it was really just disguised stretching.
This was even worse on Thursday, which ended up with me on a dance floor desperately looking for a chair to take a break from standing. The only place to go was the stage, where indeed I did sit while a go-go boy all but displayed his butthole next to me as I sipped my cocktail like the (capital letter) Queen at a garden party.
It’s not that I don’t want to see people or have fun – it’s just that my hips hurt. Like, a lot. During the pandemic (which isn’t over, by the way, get vaccinated and tested), I learned the value of a routine. I was waking up well-rested and doing things that fulfilled me before the work day began. My bed time went from a loose, oh, you know, sometime around 10, 10:30, whenever I stop scrolling to 9:05pm on the dot. (The five minutes gives me a buffer if I feel like I’m running behind at 9pm. I naturally always forget something.)
I have a very intricate nighttime routine. My Chani horoscope last week (yes) was all about taking the opportunity of Venus being in Mercury or whatever to establish my nighttime going-to-bed routine and I felt both excited and validated. Chani, I’m already there, bless Venus.
First, I put my phone away.
I have a mattress that cools to 8 degrees colder than the room temperature before shifting to 5 degrees warmer 30 minutes before I wake up.
I take melotonin (my sleepy chocolates) 10 minutes before I climb into bed, where I read for a bit.
Then I put on an eye mask, ear plugs, and spray lavender across my pillow and drift off.
Oh! And I just added this foot spray (???) that Brad’s mom gave me for Christmas that supposedly puts you out naturally. I’ve been using it the past few weeks (yes, Chani!). Does it work? I mean, I fall asleep and feel good, so sure. Who cares if it works or not? I’m sleeping! And I love it!
So yes, if I don’t get this routine in, I feel very thrown off.
I think it goes back to … we haven’t done this in a while. Our cups, both of life and actual, runneth over. Trying to balance vaccinated life with what I learned over the past two years is really, really hard. And it might mean that my goal of sleeping 8 hours and 15 minutes a night or writing one substack a week takes a hit.
Is that OK? Yeah, probably.
Is it worth it? Honestly, I don’t know. I’m too tired to think about it right now.