About six months ago, I started feeling very tired. Even after getting a good night’s rest, I would wake up feeling like I had not slept at all—kind of like the way I felt when I was a new mom. I would spend the rest of the day feeling sluggish. With each passing day the tiredness got worse and worse. Nothing that I did seemed to work—sleeping more, exercising, relaxing. But did I worry? Nope. Why? Because I just thought that my lack of sleep was catching up with me. Let’s take a little trip down memory lane to better explain the last sentence.
I had my son in 2010. With no family in the state of Ohio, and my husband in medical school, I became my son’s primary caregiver both during the day and night. And this would have been fine and dandy except my son was not sleeper. He would take mini naps throughout the day and at night he would sleep for an hour and then stay awake for two. We tried anything we could think of to help him sleep, especially through the night but nothing worked. Our pediatrician told us that since he was growing and eating and meeting all his milestones, there was no need to worry. So, I chugged along. And then came baby number two.
My daughter was born in 2012. We were still in the Ohioan wilderness alone but at least this time, my husband was there to help, and my daughter was a wonderful sleeper. Well, wonderful until I went back to work. When she was four months old when she became a little night owl like her brother. She was fussy at night and mommy was the only person able to help her sleep at night. For a year I ended up burning the proverbial candle on both ends.
When I could no longer take it, I quit my job and became a full time stay at home mom. Did it help? Not at all. Sleeping habits improved as they got older, but they would still call for me multiple times during the night. However, after 10+ years, I am happy to report that things have finally settled down and the mommy calls have all but stopped. And with this, sleep has also improved for me at night.
So, like I said, about six months ago I began to feel tired. At first, I thought age was catching up with me. But as the days went by, I realized that it was not my body that was tired—it was my brain. A slow, creeping fog had begun to roll in and it seemed to get denser and denser every day. There were days when I found myself crying because I was so tired.
There were days when all I wanted to do was just crawl into bed and never leave. I wanted to retreat into the fog. But I couldn’t because I had a novel to write. I forced myself every single day to write something. At times I would sit and stare at the dreaded blinking cursor not able to form any words. It would be a stand-off between myself and the blank page. And I am proud to say that each time, I won the fight. I would not move until words were typed and my characters had moved. Despite everything I did during the day, my sense of accomplishment only came when I wrote a few lines or whole chapters (on really good days).
Not giving up has led me to being more than halfway done with the first draft of my novel. Thinking back now, I realize that if I had given up, I probably would have never started again. This journey hasn’t been easy, but it has been worth it.
Oh, as for the fog, well, it’s still here. Turns out that I have anemia and one of the effects is fatigue. So, there are days when I am more tired than others, but I am learning to live with it because not writing it not an option.