It's funny how things turn out. I was going to write a post last night. Yesterday was an iffy day and at one point I thought it would be a good idea to sit down and actually write to get some of the thoughts and feelings out of my head and into the ether. But I never quite got round to it.
And I'm actually glad that I didn't write yesterday. For a very simple reason: this morning when I woke up I felt happy!
It is difficult to describe how lovely it is when you have been feeling a bit down to wake up and feel happy. It feels like you have been given a gift. You don't know where it has come from. It is just there. It's the best present in the world.
So what is it that brings me this magical gift? Well in this case it was a decent night's sleep!
I don't know why, but I am continually astonished by how much sleeping properly actually helps me to feel better. And it isn't just in terms of resting. I have been resting a lot recently. In fact, over the past week or so I have been positively lazy! But sleeping is different. I think that the difference is that when you sleep properly your head actually does a hell of a lot of sorting out.
Yesterday, while I was feeling fed up, I started regretting a decision that I made years ago. I can't exactly explain why I started regretting it. On any day when I feel ok I know that it was the right decision. I have also found (at the grand old age of 28!) that there is little point regretting things. Whatever decisions you make in life are the decisions you make at that point in time, because of what matters to you then and who you are then. You can't change them. What you can do is change how you act in the future or do something on any day to change the direction you are going in. But regretting anything in the past is pretty much a waste of time!
The problem was yesterday I didn't have the strength of mind to think all of that. I just felt tired and fed up with how much effort I am having to put into sorting my head out. Constantly keeping an eye on myself and rejecting the thoughts that I don't what to have any more takes up a lot of energy some days. And yesterday, I was just tired and I had had enough.
But the good thing is that yesterday I was looked after and given the space to talk about how I felt. And was able to be completely honest about how I felt. I had a cup of tea, and a really nice dinner, and a beer. I let my mind settle so that it was empty. And then I slept. And it was the best night's sleep I've had in quite a while. And - the magic thing - is that I dreamt.
Dreaming is an odd thing. It's not always positive. I have been having a lot of nightmares recently. Some of them quite horrific, and worthy of being written into screenplays and sold to make good Halloween style horrors! And generally after those I wake up feeling out of sorts. But then there are the good dreams. I don't mean dreams where you are dating Brad Pitt (jury's still out on whether that would be a good dream or not, I'm still currently thinking not!). I mean dreams where you brain processes things. Where everything that has happened during the day gets sifted and sorted. For me it's almost like all the overlaid expectations and fears that I have to fight during the day get taken away, and my mind is open and honest about what I actually think about things. In this particular case my dreams showed me that the decisions that I have made were right, and that actually in my heart of hearts I know that.
And it meant this morning that I woke up and felt happy and content. That I am in the right place.
And that was the most wonderful gift in the world.
Paul Gamble: Aeneid 6 893 ff shows how confusing Sleep was to the ancients. Virgil elsewhere refers to sleep as a gift from the gods and it's not difficult to see why he says that. There are few things to rival a good sleep as a head-emptier. For myself, over-indulgence prevented a particularly good sleep last night, so I shall settle for a good snooze this afternoon! I congratulate you, needless to say, on your own good sleep. Happy NYE?
ReplyDelete