Exhaustion

Only a person with children can comprehend the level of exhaustion of which I am about to speak.

When I was single, I thought I had no time, and I thought that I was tired. Then I had my first child in December 2004, and I have not had a decent night’s sleep since.

It’s hard for me to describe how tired I am to you. The words in my head are all jumbled up as I type. I feel like I can do nothing and yet can do anything. I’m exhausted enough to fall asleep behind the wheel or to absurdly believe that I could leap into the air from a sitting position, simply by clinching the cheeks of my buttocks.

My baby, Liya, the 7 month old, has not been sleeping well these last 2 weeks. She has a cold. When you have a child that young, anything can throw off their sleep patterns: A trip out of town, an illness, digression from their nap schedules during the day. The only people who suffer in the end are we parents. Perhaps our employers suffer as well, as the quality we put into our respective crafts all go to crap.

To illustrate how badly my cylinders are firing, I’d like to share with you what kept my mind occupied last night when I WAS sleeping:

I was homeschooling the children in a forest in Germany. They were wearing smart navy blue pinafores and white stockings. In the middle of class, an explosion shook the area. I peered over a ravine and saw that a few of my classmates from high school were lying lifelessly in a crater that was carved out by the blast.  I instructed the children to hand me the bottles of Deer Park water that we had laying around for snack later. To get to the bottom of the ravine, I would have to go down a steep ledge. Fortunately, a steel staircase magically appeared before I had to make that trek.

As my friends lay groaning in agony, I sprinkled Deer Park water on them. They suddenly sprouted up, like little posies in the mud. My friend Kim Kinzie, who in real life is a lesbian’s lesbian, peace-loving and totally anti-war, met me as I was frantically handing water out to the troops, stopped me and told me that I was a “good American”. Her buzz cut and green uniform made her look really odd.

*******

And then I woke up, showered, and came in to work to write about electronic pressure measurement. I have a degree in PR, not Physics. Failure is the motto for the day.

I’m too tired to write a witty ending for today’s post. So…

THE END.