October is the Month of Stress

After having dinner with some friends last night (the 3rd meeting of our "See You Next Tuesday" Club), I came home, did some work for school, and hit the sack at around 11:15pm. I'd set the alarm for 5am, in anticipation of hitting the gym this morning.

So I lay there for a while, and sleep didn't come. I tried turning on the fan, to give myself some white noise. No go. I turned on the space heater, because I figured I'd get drowsy if it was extra hot. Nope. I turned and lay the opposite way than I usually do. Nothing. I called the dog up to the bed. I pushed him back down. Nothing. I lay there until nearly 1:30am, then got up and started googling "insomnia".

I googled for a while, then read for a while, trying to make myself completely exhausted. Then, I tried going back to bed. I lay for a long time, and, then, I realized that my alarm clock was going to go off in less than an hour. I was absolutely miserable, felt horrible, and decided to get up again and make sub plans; I would take a sick day. I did so, set my alarm for 7am, called in sick, and then proceeded to sleep in until around noon. The sleep trick of wiggling my toes worked. It was my first sick day in over a year.

In my googling, I saw that insomnia is almost never the result of something physical, but, rather, something mental. There is some sort of stress in the mind that is keeping me tense. I'm very much a roll-with-the-flow type of person. The opposite of neurotic? That's me. I take whatever stress there is and sort of put it on a shelf in my head, assuming I can ignore it and it will go away.

So, what is stressing me out right now?

(1) Money. I'm fronting for all books and field trips and it's costing me a hell of a lot of stress. I'll eventually get paid back, I know, but I always ends up getting screwed. As of now, I've overdrawn my account, and, even though I have a separate savings account with money in it, my debit/checking account is charging me $28 per overdraw. Therefore, a $2 bottle of water that I used my debit card on cost me $30 the other day. I'm also paying nearly a grand to go to NCTE, out of pocket - $300 for registration, $150/night for hotel. Ugh.

(2) This big field trip. I have no co-chaperone. Stressful.

(3) Piles and piles of grading. Stressful.

(4) Day-by-day planning. Stressful.

(5) Even with the loss of 6 pounds last week, still weigh so much that I could get a killer heart attack at 40. 251 on a 5'10 scale, even with some muscle throw in, is unacceptable.

(6) I really need a new car. With #1, that makes it tough.

(7) All these little things. A senior citizen dog who, suddenly, has started shitting in the house and deposits so much hair everywhere that I have to vaccuum every other day. (I complain about Holden, but, really, he is such a huge stress reliever that it's hard to be mad at him.) Friends who are takers, not givers. Other things regarding dating and starting a family that I just don't blog about anymore.

(8) National Boards is a lot of work.

All of it, I guess, is creating a lot of stress in my life right now. To try to alleviate some of it, I'm heading to the gym right now. I think more regular exercise will help the whole insomnia thing, too (I had missed Tuesday).