shakespearemom

When one can’t sleep, what should one do? I am contemplating the question because it is after 3 a.m., and I am in that very situation. I’ve had insomnia most of my life, and it’s the hard kind, the one where I fall asleep fine, but then I’m up at 2 or 3 a.m., sweating from the stress of panic dreams that don’t make any sense but still leave me tense. 

Perhaps I should do what I had my students do on Tuesday, when I saw that so many of them looked worn out and panicked: Write a list of what’s keeping me up at night. They probably assumed I wouldn’t care, that their list would be ignored, and perhaps mine won’t be more than dull, but I’m game to write it down anyway. Who knows? Maybe it will be dull enough to put me back to sleep (and if you are up late reading this, it should help you).

So, here’s the list, the reasons-I-am-up-at-nearly-three-a.m.-panicking list:

1.  My house is a mess. It has fallen in rank on my list of things to do, since I’ve had many other things to do. I spent the afternoon organizing my daughter’s bedroom, since her “cleaning” has been turning into a sort of shoveling-into-corners exercise. And now her room is great, but the playroom is in a worse shambles, the floors need vacuuming and sweeping, and the bathrooms!–oh, don’t let me get started. BLECCCCCHHH!

2.  I am torn between fatigue from grading papers all the time and my strong desire to do this class (and every class I teach) “right.” I want every student to work as hard as he/she can, and yet I want it to be clear to each one, too, that though I set the challenges of the course, I am also available to support each one. And the panic I see in my students’ eyes affects me more deeply than I sometimes admit. And since I teach primarily non-traditional students, who have kids, full-time jobs, or are still in high school while working through college, they have a great deal of other stuff on their plates besides my class. 

3.  I am worn out from watching little kids, especially my own son. A few months shy of five, he’s decided to enter the teen years early, refusing to get dressed when I tell him to, and then, while I’m taking my daughter across the street to the bus stop, dressing himself fully and making his own toast (no kidding–he even buttered it). And he and his friend (the other boy I watch) have been driving each other crazy all week, until I finally forced them to play separately ALL DAY on Thursday, since they couldn’t seem to be together for two minutes without fighting. They played great on Friday, though, but this week has made me wonder whether I should watch the younger boy next year, when my son’s in school all day. Even if their interaction sometimes drives me crazy (and them, too), it’s really good for them to have to interact, to share, to clean up, to settle differences, etc. And if I have one child all by himself, he’ll be lonely. His mother seems very willing to let me continue next year, since she knows he likes me, is very comfortable at my house, and trusts me, but I’m not sure it’s the right thing for either of us. I’m also facing a new schedule, when both of my kids will be in school full-time. Yet it is possible that my son won’t get into a full-time slot, which won’t be good for either of us. (Again, guilt, guilt, guilt…)

4.  All this upheaval with kids creates a new stress, and I think I’m saving the biggest one for last: work. With both kids in school, I would like to do more work. But where? I am applying for two full-time jobs at the moment, but I’m not sure how much of a negative effect they will have on me and my family. Will I have to put my kids in after school care? How will they ever get their homework done? Will I have to grade all evening, ignoring my kids further? What if I just pool a few part-time things together, like I’ve been doing over the last few years? Is that enough? Can I do all that work while the kids are at school, and be waiting for them when they get off the bus? I know how lonely I felt as a latch-key kid, even with an older sister home, too. A lot of responsibility fell on us to do housework, take care of our own homework, etc. But what about my career? Would it still be okay to do adjunct work, and then write in the afternoons, before the kids get home? I’m moved between responsibility, a desire to use my degrees, a loathing of grading papers (after all these years, it’s the ONE thing I detest about teaching), guilt over not wanting to care for my kids all day, guilt b/c my hubby’s been working full-time for years, while I’ve been mostly home with the kids (even if he says it would have driven him mad), and fear that I have, in fact, gone mad. 

There, it’s all out. The whole list. I could write a novel based on the fourth one, but I won’t bore you further. You probably fell asleep halfway through number 3 anyway. 

I wish I had.

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