feliceI was hoping to be more upbeat this week but, I have to confess, the real world is not giving me much comfort. I know it’s supposed to be Healthy Monday on Betterafter50, but frankly this has been a particularly tough week for accessing personal health.
Global disruptions and indigestion from this past weekend’s family wedding in Raleigh, North Carolina are infiltrating my sleep. The issues of most concern to me are weather events and of course world order. But, my inability to digest really tasty southern cooking hasn’t helped.
The good news is my step-niece got married and the wedding weekend was a true celebration of a great couple and quality family time. We were treated to lots of local food, the centerpiece of which was fried chicken, fried okra, fried green tomatoes, biscuits, Mac and Cheese and plenty of Tequila.
The bad news is, I ate it all (because it was insanely delicious and when in Rome ) but my system went into shock.
Lying awake with a big belly ache, I turned to my usual middle of the night escapism routine…reading on my kindle.
The truth is I never sleep through the night anymore. I’m wide awake at 4 am like a baby who needs a feeding looking for nourishment, I’m used to being on auto-awake and I’m ok with it. This is MY time to enjoy reading as the outside world stays where it belongs — outside!
What I’m reading now on my Kindle for my Boston Book Club is Education of An Idealist by Samantha Powers and it offers zero escapism.
I had no idea what Samantha Powers was up to back during the war in Bosnia, the Rwandan Genocide and the disaster in Darfur, but now I do. As I re-read about the world in the 90’s, when I was supposed to be awake, I realize, that’s when I was asleep. I was sleeping like a baby in those years, focused on my little world, exhausted from my jammed packed days and nights of raising the boys and running my small publishing company. I was certainly not living globally back then.
But Samantha, thank goodness, was wide awake and part of a team that was helping to keep us safe so we could sleep. Her story brings us into her day to day life inside the Obama administration where she worked with a groomed team to handle many an international crisis. It now seems like a fairy tale. She paints a picture of smart people in stable positions making strategic international decisions under our last President.
I know this isn’t supposed to be a political column, so let me just say, the world feels more chaotic today than I can ever remember and it doesn’t make for good sleeping.
And the truth is, when the outside world doesn’t stay outside but starts to infiltrate our personal space, that’s when we get the big 4 am wake up jolt. It’s not just someone else’s problem. It’s hard to digest. The grease from all that fried food starts gnawing in our bellies when you’re it’s victim and you lie wide-awake, hoping it will just go away.
So, rather than find comfort in my kindle last night, I made another unhealthy move and grabbed for my Iphone and toggled between Impeachment stories, the fires in Los Angeles and the Typhoon in Tokyo. I’m heading out to visit my kids in Los Angeles today where the fires are raging and to top it off, my son is preparing for a trip to Japan in a few days. Really!
As I write this blog from the plane ride to L.A., my eyes are getting heavy and I believe, despite global disruptions, my body is doing what it does best when it’s on overload. I’m gonna to take 2 Tums and a little nap and when I arrive, I’m hoping, seeing those kids will make it all feel better.