paisleypiper's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fake energy Every morning I wake up and take my synthetic thyroid. I have to take it 3-4 hours after eating and then I can't eat for an hour. I wake up full of dread and dragging. I sit and stare and can't seem to shake the sleep from head. My bed, which is the most uncomfortable bed in the middle class world, seems like the warmest, coziest place. The dent in the pillow, still holds the shape of my head. Last night it was chilly so I got up and grabbed my warm bathrobe for something soft and warm to drape over me. By morning its soft fabric, still smelling of fabric softener, was more comforting than a warm gentle breeze. Each morning I want to avoid getting out of bed or if I do I quickly return and long to climb back in and have a few more hours of peace. About an hour after I drag myself to work the jitters begin. And I begin to get a bit hyper. I don't know how long this will continue. Is it a side effect or is this me without a thyroid that malfunctions? The first day I thought I had taken some really great drug because of the slight nervousness that accompanied the return of my energy. I had missed my level of energy. As Quinn reminded me, back when we were dating, I used to rearrange my apartment in the middle of the night. She would come over and I would have re-thought all of the best uses for the space. I loved that about an apartment -- everything is so flexible. And I loved that about that time in my life -- that flexibility to just redo it all and pull off an all-nighter quietly shoving furniture around. I also used to stay up all night printing photographs or writing. I could drag into work and somehow, going to bed at 10 the next evening made it all work out. I thought it was any number of things. I thought it was the process of aging and did not stop to think that I was running out of steam before my time. I thought it was depression that made me just barely make it through the day and then long to just curl up and rest. I thought it was my job that was too taxing for me. Lately I have had this energetic rush all day and then I crash at night. Seven thirty to be exact. Thirteen hours after taking the medicine. And this has a disappointing effect. It leaves me with the odd leftovers from all of those jitters--a weird collection of frustration and what would be anxiety if I had any energy to feed it. Instead it is this feeling of defeat that makes me blas�. So I wrote last night that I didn't think my friends cared about what I did. And I don't know that I meant that. I kind of regretted it today. It was a leftover emotion because it used to be that no one I knew understood my job or what it was like to have a job with a bunch of stress and pressure and no money. My boss used to say "that is unacceptable. Make that happen faster because until you xyz children all over the city are suffering." She was given to over-statement, but that entire field had that sense of urgency. And in my personal life people thought I played with kids all day. I became friends with my coworkers, perhaps in a way that is a second cousin to the way professionals who work in a hospital setting are friends. I don't understand the way leftover emotions work. Is it what is left when everything i generate now is used up from the fast-forward charge in my life lately? Or it just the tired habits that have the most well-defined synapses in my brain..... Tomorrow is Friday, which makes tonight Friday eve. Since I am only drinking alcoholic beverages on the weekends, the Friday eve distinction becomes significant�. So significant that I am having a beer. So often I like the eve�s better than the actual day. Thanksgiving eve is one of my favorite holidays. To live absolutely on the verge of all that chaos in the kitchen. It is a big, beautiful last eve before the heaps of dishes, pots and pans. I like Thanksgiving because I like everything that accompanies the turkey, as long as my mother is not cooking. It is a fairly low-key holiday: we still do not exchange Thanksgiving cards or have a thanksgiving turkey doll that we decorate with little miniature symbols of pilgrims. There are no really unfortunate Thanksgiving songs. Lots of food is involved. And it is a holiday composed of the extremes � lots of business in the kitchen and then lots of sloth. When I was child I always dressed up for Thanksgiving. I was born loving Hawthorne and for some reason as a child I did not understand the difference between the Pilgrims and Hawthorne. It all seemed old and very New England to me, and that is the only difference of which I was capable of discerning. Hawthorne wrote some books of mythological stories appropriate for children, so I worshipped him for those tales that he wrote long before I knew what he would mean in my life later. For as much as I like Thanksgiving, I love Thanksgiving eve. It is the last reasonable day before all of the madness that has become �Christmas� ensues. In that regard, it is quiet and almost holy. An evening of uncertainty and ambiguity. How will the family dinners go? Will everyone like the pie? How will the turkey turn out? Will the dog behave? And all too soon, many hours of preparation results in heaps of napping people and stacks of dishes. For now, I am quite content with Friday eve. With working on my compilation of Suzanne Vega across the years. With my beer. With the sweet, sleeping doggy on my lap. The space heater gently warming the room. And the quietness I force myself to observe in my life as I push back the loud banter and gaudy brawl of my day both behind me and in front of me. I register freer - 10:46 p.m. - 2002-10-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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