Sunday, January 25, 2009

Me and my thoughts

I struggle to fall asleep. No matter how tired I am (even when the kids were newborns) it takes me a while to shut off my brain, relax and go to sleep.

Evenings are when I tend to get overly emotional. In fact, my husband and I have a no-fighting-after-10 pm rule. If I start to pick an argument, he’ll point out the time and tell me to go to bed instead of getting worked up (do I sometimes still go ahead and arue until I get worked up? Yes. Does he sometimes deserve it? Yes.) But even though I can avoid fighting with him late at night, I still lie in bed and fight with myself.

My top themes include: I’m not being a good mother -- I was too mean /impatient /shouty /unimaginative with the kids today (I always resolve that tomorrow we will build the couch fort, bake cookies, get out of the house and go to the park). Or, I’m not doing a good job with my ministry – I’m not working hard enough, I’m putting things off instead of getting them done on time, I’m not praying hard enough, the reason there’s not more people coming to church is entirely my fault. Or I wasn’t a good friend today – I talked when I should have listened, I told stupid stories that no one cares about, I should have offered to help, I should have called…hey, why isn’t anyone calling me? I don’t have any friends, no one likes me, that’s why this ministry thing will never work, because I’m unlikebale and I don’t pray enough and I shout at my kids…

So, you can see why Marcus has to stop me from fighting with him, right? Because my thoughts snowball so rapidly I might as well build a fort and invite the neighborhood over for a snowball fight.

Now, don’t worry, these are late at night thoughts, not all the time thoughts. There is some truth to these self-criticisms, but in the light of day I can give myself much more of a break.
I have had this problem of over –self-evaluating at night for a long time, so I have a few strategies to help me relax and go to sleep. Trying to remember every detail of the walk I used to take to school each morning. Remembering all the names of people in the high school band. Assigning each letter a numerical value and adding up the numbers in each family members’ names (that’s for when my thoughts are really down and I need something big to occupy my mind).

But lately I have taken to composing blog entries in my head. Sometimes they are sharing my frustrations with the day, sometimes a funny story that happened. The thing is, I start to obsess over the wording I want. And then, because it’s late and I’m not in a good emotional place, I think ‘Why would anyone want to read this anyway? I’ll bore the whole of the internet with my sad-sack tales, which is just as bad as talking too much and not listening to my friends). And the thing that was supposed to help me calm down and go to sleep has me all wound up again.
And the worst part? I don’t even then write it on my blog. So the next night I either re-compose it in my head, or beat myself up over the fact that I don’t keep up with my blog! Sheesh. Would you just give yourself a break, woman?

So, I am going to try to write some of these blog entries down, because I do want to write, and that will take away some of the blog guilt. And I do think they help me get a perspective on my life – even as I wrote this, I can see how ridiculous some of my thinking is, and that makes me feel better. The thing is, it’s not like monopolising the conversation. No one has to read this if they don’t want to. But if you are reading this, don’t worry. Life is always better in the morning than I think it is late at night.

And by the way, my name adds up to 234.

2 comments:

Jo 12:46 PM  

I am not cool enough to know the texty/bloggy symbol for "hugs", but I'm so giving you that symbol right now. Hmm, that sounds like I just said I was giving you the finger or something. Came out wrong. HUGS, THAT'S WHAT I MEANT!
Write it all down, darlin', and post it. Cuz I for one am reading it and nodding my head. It's free therapy, after all. And FWIW, I love ya Ms. 234!!

Ali 3:28 PM  

Couldn't agree more. Keep writing - you can't buy the kind of therapy you get from blogging! I know this for a fact; my sister-in-law is a psychiatrist!! (and it was her who recommended I started a blog when I was ill!)

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