There are certain things we grow to expect about our bodies.
Every day we wake up, eat regularly, use the bathroom regularly, walk, drive, etc.
(Not everyone starts off with the same deck of cards, mind you. There are so many people who are not fortunate enough to depend on those basics for day one).
But I digress, as I recently crossed into what some still call middle age but my children simply refer to as “old”, things are happening that I was fine with, as long as they were happening to someone else.
My body has unlearned how to sleep. The most basic of innate skills! Simply get comfortable, put your head down, close your eyes and voila. It so intrinsic to our nature babies do it when they don’t even want to! They simply just nod off, those smug little cuties.
I can get maybe an 1-2 hours straight if I’m lucky. For some reason, my brain, which was so good at telling time it often wakes me up before my alarm (like ten minutes prior which is ridiculously on time), has recessed into a state of confusion.
BRAIN: Is it morning? It’s morning right?
ME: Nope. It’s not morning. It’s 1:30AM.
BRAIN: Technically, 1:30AM is morning.
ME: Shut up and go back to sleep. You know this isn’t when we get up!
Then I go back to sleep until…..
BRAIN: Tada! It’s morning!
ME: Nope, not morning. It’s 3:30.
BRAIN: You get up to write around now, right?
ME: No, that’s 4:45. What happened to us. We used to have a such a good relationship.
BRAIN: We still have a good relationship. Your heart’s still beating isn’t it.
ME: {{Sigh}}….
My maternal grandmother never slept. We would visit and I swear the woman was a vampire. She’d go to bed when the other adults did but when young Jonathan would wake up at 5:30am to go watch cartoons or whatever she would already be up sitting at the table in her robe. Every….single…. morning. She should have been a photographer specializing in sunrises. She never missed one.
And now I’m her. I’ve become my grandmother. I can’t stay asleep, which would be great if when my alarm actually went off at 4:45am on most weekdays I was perky. But instead I’m waking me up not after at least six hours of straight sleep, but of scattered migrant sleep, the kind I imagine Frodo and Samwise had while protecting that ring. By the weekends, I’m a zombie.
I’ve lost the ability to eat. Actually, let me clarify that. I’ve lost the ability to eat anything THAT TASTES GOOD without my digestive tract wanting to reenact the Battle of Antietam in my stomach and esophagus. My favorite fruits like peaches and plums now causes and incredible build-up of bacteria in my gut so strong it feels like someone is pumping air into from the inside out. Fast food is absolutely out of the question (not that most of it has ever been a good idea, sometimes I still splurge on a favorite) without my innards rebelling in a way that makes me wonder if my stomach and intestines are having the same political battles down there we’re having up here.
I have sciatica. I swear to God I never ever heard myself saying this out loud. But having had three surgeries on my right knee and a slipped disc in my back, without constant exercise, I start getting pain in my hip and numbness in my right foot just by walking or standing too long. It’s like I can already flash forward twenty years from now when my children are requesting wheelchairs for me at places like Disneyland and I’ll still saying, nah, I’ll make it. No. I don’t think I will now. I think I’m going to have to visit my doctor, which means seeing a first doctor, so I can then go see a second doctor. Oy G-d.
My pills are increasing. I know that it’s a good thing we have pills to keep us going, but they’re multiplying at a geometric rate. I’m just waiting for them to tell me I have high blood pressure (I’m really close on this one) because it runs in my family later in life, while at the same time have a really slow heartbeat. One time, I was in my doctor’s office and my resting heart rate dipped to 39 BPM. They thought I was going to die and rushed me to get an EKG. Then after saying they thought I had a heart valve problem that wasn’t serious but would need handled when I was closer to 80, I then had a cardiac MRI because no life insurance company would cover me with a valve defect. The MRI revealed that I was, in fact, healthy. But nowadays my diastolic and systolic rates are pressing up into that pill zone. I see a new prescription in my future.
I find that I stumble a little more and occasionally pause while standing up.
STANDING UP! Standing up is something only infants can’t do!
Mind you, I feel pretty fine most days. Mentally, I think I can still do anything I want. For the first time, my eldest son, who is no speedster by the way, outran me. My leg was tingling, and I couldn’t even accelerate to a respectable level, and by that I mean, faster than your average tortoise.
I’m crazy.
I don’t think this aging thing is for me. So, for this year, I’m asking G-d during this ten days of repentance for a deal. I’ll be more mindful and religious, and he can stop this aging thing in my fifties. Seems fair, right. I don’t need a miracle baby. Not asking for any possessions or increase in wealth. Just stop this stupid thing I’m now learning about called arthritis in my knee.
Of course, one thing that does seem to help is Tylenol.
You might want to get tested for sleep apnea given you’re waking up so much. I know a few folks who wear CPAP machines now and say it’s changed their lives. I wake up a few times every night but I’ve done that my whole life and I tend do fall right back asleep.
I will say I wake up sore now. That’s a fun new life experience. Sleeping hurts. That … is not a fun development.
I have to say, this was so funny. As someone with a long list of physical issues, some age related and some not, this was a comforting and honest reflection to read.
I’ve been a bad sleeper since I was about 10, and it’s been a nightmare to deal with, especially since other physical problems get so much worse, to the point of being incapacitating, with sleep deprivation. Sleeping pills have been a way of life for me for decades. It’s not something I’d necessarily recommend, but I do hope you can sort out the sleep for yourself. And who knows, maybe it’s a phase that will pass. Fingers crossed for a disappearance as mysterious as its appearance.
Valerian root? Smells like something died but does really help.
And the Tylenol line cracked me up.