And then I realized that I’d entirely fucked my sleep cycle.
To be fair, I was aware in the back of my head it was a possibility. During the last weekend of March, I was working a genuinely insane schedule, overseeing and editing livestreams and written posts from two different conventions in two different time zones, both of which were — because of the way the U.S. works and where I live — starting early in the morning. As a result, I was waking up somewhere between 5 and 5:30 every morning and then having to get up pretty immediately because I needed to be at work around 6am. This, after working two other conventions earlier in the month, both of which also had me up earlier than usual. And, it turns out, after all of that, your body just decides that’s the new norm.
Or, at least, my body did.
The last night of the four-day-stretch, my mind was racing through a combination of extended exhaustion and over-exertion; it’s a relatively common state for me when I attend comic conventions, but this was a little different because I hadn’t actually traveled anywhere despite working two shows at once — I was still at home, dealing with all the regular home stuff in addition to the shows. (For example, I stepped away from work in the early evening on the last day, but not to rest: I had to do a grocery run, and then make sure the trash was on the curb for the next morning.) I was lying in bed, thinking to myself, at least I get to sleep in tomorrow. And then it was 4:57am and I was just entirely awake. The day after, I did manage to sleep in… until 5:20-something.
Worst, my first impulse was still to get up and start working. I didn’t, as much as I tried to justify it to myself. (Well, you’re already awake, and you do have a lot to do…) But as I laid in bed, trying and failing to simply wish myself asleep again, I thought to myself that things were, if not easier, then at least more restful when I was younger and my body more elastic as to be able to shrug this kind of thing off more easily.