It’s 6:09 am on a Saturday morning as I start typing this. I’ve been awake since 4:44 am, god knows why. I woke up abruptly, padded to the bathroom, had a drink of water and laid back down, expecting to fall back asleep without a problem, but no. Tossing and turning didn’t help and then I started doing layouts in my head and that was it…I was wide awake by 5:30. It’s been ages since this has happened. I honestly think that there is so much anxiety swirling around everything right now and this is where it’s affecting me today. Today? Tonight? Last night? Right now. All the time.
Can you call it insomnia if it’s waking up after 6-ish hours of sleep? Or just a sign of aging? Sometimes it’s the birds chirping outside our window when it’s a cloudless morning that wakes me up, but I can usually fall back asleep after that. Sometimes it’s the people next door who get up super-early to go deal with their horses that wakes me up, but I can usually fall back asleep after that. But layout problems in my head? There’s no sleeping after that. I even lay there and contemplating getting up and driving in to work to fetch my laptop so I could work them out for real, but I’m only awake early, not insane.
I’m sad about Elizabeth Warren dropping out of the Presidential race, but what is more saddening, not really surprised. I’m depressed about the upcoming US election and all the stupidity swirling around it. I’m freaked out by climate change. And trying to stay focused on things I can manage results in working on layout problems in my head at 5 am when I should be sleeping. Getting a really well-thought-out and attractive-looking layout done isn’t going to save the planet, which doesn’t make me feel any better. I sometimes feel like the Earth is shrugging its skin trying to dislodge an irritant. We’re the irritant.
I’m worried about the coronavirus and all the stupidity swirling around it, too. My sister’s planned tag-a-long with her husband’s work trip to Zürich is cancelled…she was going to spend the week with my brother, while her husband was working. My husband’s work trip to Italy next week was cancelled and we have 2 people at work in quarantine who were in northern Italy skiing 2 weeks ago. Martin is planning on buying tickets to come home in June and we had been discussing going to the States later in the summer to visit my mom, but now we really don’t know what to do. I guess buy rebookable or refundable plane tickets but the extra cost might mean the trip isn’t affordable at all and who know what’s going to happen in the coming months.
It’s getting lighter out but I can see it’s not going to be a sunny day. It’s quite overcast, though the clouds are high up. More rain on the forecast, for the foreseeable future. I’m so tired of rain. Tonight we’re going to dinner with friends and tomorrow I’m going to see Beauty & the Beast at Malmö Opera with Debbie. Might have to sneak a nap this afternoon. It’s almost 7 am now. It hasn’t taken me an hour to type this…I’ve been surfing inbetween paragraphs: checking coronavirus statistics and adding books to my wishlist.
I could continue being sad and anxious and freaked out about things mostly outside my control. I could go back to bed and try to go back to sleep for a couple of hours. I could go lie on the couch and read or scroll through Instagram. I could go get that laptop and work on the layout ideas that woke me up to begin with. I could walk on the treadmill, which I do when I get up on weekend mornings anyway. Or all of the above, in approximately that order.