I’m so tired. Today was the first day back at school, and while I was actually pretty excited to get back to my students, I definitely was not excited about waking up early. I hate waking up to alarms. I hate waking up early.

I kind of like the morning though. It’s dark and quiet and as long as I have to be awake, I enjoy the cool light of the early morning sun. Especially in the summer. But it’s winter and I have a heated blanket and it’s still night when I have to wake up for school, so I hate waking up and getting out of bed.

I love to sleep. I don’t sleep well much anymore, at least not since I had my first kid. Before that, in what seems like a different life in one of the multiverses, I slept a glorious sleep every night. I could stay up late because I had the energy, and like a fool I wasted it on stupid things like video games and late night terrible television. But when I went to sleep, everything was just right.

I still love to sleep, but it’s fitful now. I roll around, trying to escape the body heat of my youngest, who has climbed into bed with me again. I attempt to push the dog away with my feet, but I never succeed because he is the king of passive resistance. Instead of turning on the radio with a sleep mode of 59 minutes when I need something consistent to calm my boiling mind, I squint at the podcast selection on my phone that I shouldn’t be looking at during the night. I try to focus on the words but I can feel my heartbeat in the soles of my feet now and my pillow is perpetually a little wrong. And my grading isn’t done. And I’m not totally sure about how tomorrow’s plan is going to go. And one kid has guitar lessons and the other has basketball practice and I need to remember that so that I don’t accidentally get home late. And the dog is licking at his feet. He’s really loud. He needs to go to the vet for his check up, but I only seem to remember that when I’m awake in the middle of the night. I also have bills to pay, but I only remember those in the middle of the night too. When I’m supposed to be sleeping. Which I love.

I’m well over my five minutes. Not on purpose. I’m really tired so I thought I would just write for a tight five minutes and go to sleep. I’m really tired because I’m sick with a stupid cold. My head hurts even though I took a dose of ibuprofen that is definitely not recommended on the bottle. I spent the time waiting for the relief writing, eyes glazed over, expecting this blog post might be the most crazy thing I’ve ever written publicly. I hope there aren’t too many mistakes, but whatever, yolo (lol).

When the ibuprofen kicks in, I will fall asleep. Which I love.