Some people cope well with exhaustion. I am not one of them.
Some people get up after a rotten night’s sleep, try to wake themselves with a hot shower, then slug back a coffee or two.
By the time they’ve left the house, you wouldn’t know they’d hardly slept.
I am not one of those people.
When I’ve slept badly, the whole world knows about it.
First, there’s the aesthetics.
When I’m tired, I don’t have the energy to even look in a mirror, let alone attend to the problems I would spot if I were to do such a thing.
Hence, I sport the ‘bed head’ look all day.
But it’s not just my hair that looks as though I’ve just climbed out from under the sheets.
Then there’s my mood.
You know those Snickers ads that go, ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry?’.
That.
Except, substitute ‘hungry’ for ‘tired’.
Or, actually, add ‘tired’ onto ‘hungry’. Because when I’m tired, I’m usually also starving.
I also figure that consuming extra energy might help substitute for lack of sleep, kind of like some math equation.
No sleep + lots of sugar = more awake.
I also look to coffee as my saviour but get so disappointed when I’ve finished another cup and it doesn’t magically erase my exhaustion.
Each time I finish another cup of coffee, I look at my mug in confusion.
Isn’t caffeine meant to cure all the things?
The truth is, just like they say in that Snickers ad, I’m not me when I’m tired.
Instead, my brain moves at sloth-like speed.
Simple things seem impossibly hard.
Like, right now I’m meant to be writing this blog, but I’m trying to summon the energy to get off the couch and actually be useful.
So far, I’ve made it off the couch once – and that was to grab some chocolate. I figured I needed the energy first to fuel the brainpower needed to write… And now I’m just waiting for that sugar rush to kick in and force me into awareness.
My husband skills also dip a notch or two when I’m this fried.
I love my wife with all my heart, but it’s so hard to keep track of everything going on when all me wants to do is lie on the couch.
My wife was talking about something something something something earlier, and I must have had a particularly blank look on my face because she stopped and said, “Babe, are you even listening to me?”
The problem was, I was listening.
I wasn’t daydreaming, my mind wasn’t elsewhere, and yet her words were entering my brain and sitting next to each other in a neat little line without making any sense.
The annoying thing is, my wife also barely got any sleep last night.
But does she whine and moan and act like the whole world is coming to an end because she’s tired?
Nuh-uh.
The woman powers on, slugging back coffee and cake and continuing on with life and taking care of our daughter.
In fact, if you were to see her now, you wouldn’t even know she’d had a rotten night’s sleep.
Which goes to show that some people cope well with exhaustion.
I just wish I was one of them.
