I had a better night’s sleep last night, though again it was a late night. This equalled an unusual lie-in for me. Well, it wasn’t a lie-in. I was that tired, I overslept. I never need an alarm to wake up, that’s how regulated my body clock is, so it was disappointing to oversleep by almost 90 minutes.
I’m one of those who thinks sleeping in is a complete waste of a day. Historically, I was always a night owl. In the last fifteen years, I suddenly came to appreciate very early starts. The discipline they gave me. The problem is I still remained a night owl. In that decade and a half, there has been a regular battle, not really mine, more fought by my GP and various clinics, to get me to sort out the sleeping. This peaked with having to ‘attend’ a sleep seminar on Zoom when Zoom was dominating our world in those never-to-be-forgotten (horrendous) lockdowns, a seminar I partly napped through.
I completely see why poor sleep can curtail your life. I’m not sure that would be too much of a loss for me these days, but there is an infantile side to me that finds sleeping so difficult, and what’s more, f***ing boring, that I love being able to forget all my worries and staying up late reading, listening or watching something. I’m not sure at this stage of my life how that changes.
I’ve always been able to recall how the insomnia started. It was the winter after I turned 13, and I was quite anxious at the time. It may have been down to any number of things. My parents’ marital difficulties, possibly, problems at school, compounded by the fact the school had downsized to a semi-derelict site in Battersea which in terms of drabness was arguably worse than Clapham South, the school’s former site, which takes some doing. Whatever it was, I went from being known and envied by other parents for my sleeping. I was early to bed, early to get up. I never gave my parents any problems with my sleep. And then it all changed. Forever, it looks like.
Taking a rest day from the running, I had a workout at home this morning, beginning with some half-hearted stretches before finally getting into the whole thing as one of those live audio-only Tears For Fears early 1990 concerts, ad-free, played on YouTube.
’89-90 (the end of ’90 tailed off significantly) remains probably the favourite period of my life. Late ’93 and most of ’94 was very special, though also featured an inordinate amount of emotional pain which once I lost my mum, I came to see that period as training for the grieving that dominated my life in the early years of the millennium.
Nostalgia is a powerful thing, dangerous even, because there can be a tendency to just remember the good stuff, but I’ve always managed to remember both sides of the more memorable times of my life, especially when it comes to ’93-94 which probably shaped my character more than any events either side of losing my parents. And yet, would I live through that ’93-94 period again if the outcome would be as sad as it was? It’s a tough call, that.
There was so much about that time that was very special, but it was only ever going to end one way and it plunged me into a deep well of what I can see now was depression because I was someone who could keep things to myself. Had I spoken to someone of what I was going through, it might have been different, but whatever shadows I was living under, I was one of those guys who just found a way to function with that darkness. Maybe creatively I thought these experiences took you to another level creatively like all the great writers I loved and admired by then, and maybe that is indeed the case, but on a personal level, it definitely costs you.
By the time I reached the back-up café just before midday, still in spring regalia, I was starting to feel the onset of hay fever. I’m not a big sufferer, thankfully, and it was surfacing last week, enough for me to dig out my prescription hay fever pills that are very effective. I was struggling for an hour or so in the back-up café and it might be tomorrow I take one of these prescription pills. None of which is of interest to you. I guess I’ve just padded out this post with a filler paragraph.
Café soundscape, 13:29hrs, 4 April 2023
I’d hoped the back-up café might be quieter today with the Easter holidays being upon us. That some of the Yummy Mummies and their regal children might be off on some fancy holidays, but when a table of 8 mums, one guy in a pre-Premier League late 80s Everton away top, and 8 toddlers turned up, and all the noise and fussing that accompanied that, I thought I might have trouble concentrating, but as it turned out, I was able to have one of my best days on the script in weeks.
I continued trying to work my way through the plot obstacle that’s partly held it up. If things weren’t as they were right now, I think I’d have resolved this by now and enjoyed the process of finding that solution, but it’s such a tough time mentally that right now, I’m struggling.
The second latte, as you can see here, was way too dark for me. I could’ve asked for a side jug of hot milk, but the Muscular Madeiran had just shaken hands with a customer who looked like he hadn’t washed as yet this week, and I didn’t want the hassle of having to find a way to discretely clean that jug.
Tonight, it’s Chelsea v Liverpool, or as it is this season, 8th v 11th, a big fixture in my family as we were all either Chelsea or Liverpool fans. In Subbuteo numbers, that’s 42 v 41.
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