Zombified

Bleah.

Three and a half hours' sleep is not enough to practice medicine, especially when coming on the heels of a week and a half of insomnia and nightmares.

Luckily, it *is* enough sleep to make sitting on the sofa, watching a Star Trek: The Next Generation marathon, and playing computer mah-jongg seem like a fascinating and fulfilling way to spend the day. And, given that I'm not working today, I believe that's what I'm going to do, for the next few hours, at least. If it stays bright and sunny and I manage to become slightly more functional, I'll hopefully go for a walk this afternoon. I am not, however, making any life and death decisions.

I had hoped that when the sources of stress in my life were cut back, the anxiety would go, too. Apparently, that's not the case - it's just decided to attach itself to random events and issues, leaving me panicking at 3am over utterly random crap. Looks like it's codeine time if I want to break this cycle....

I want a nap.

Alive Again

Home, after a long walk in the warm muggy afternoon, I settle into the sofa to catch up on the internets and kill time until my husband comes home. I've managed to shake off most of the fatigue of the day, but I'm still a bit fuzzy around the edges of my brain, and the air still feels heavy and hot.

Five minutes, maybe less, after I sit down, there's a change in the air and I start hearing raindrops fall. Moments after that, the first crack of thunder sounds, and the spattering of occasional droplets turns to a steady fall. I send a sympathetic thought to the friend walking home through this, and try to turn my attention back to the shiny box in front of me... and fail. After futilely attempting to read a paragraph or two, I wind up out on my porch.

The air is cool and light again, and the rain is cold and delicious as it wets my hair and washes my face and slides down my arms. Being alive and outside feels like waking up finally, and breathing has lost the feeling of trying to inhale through a damp wool blanket. Even though cold weather is less than a week behind me, I revel in the feeling of shivering again.

Now my tank top is wet and sticking to me and my hair is trickling down my back, soaking the parts of me that the rain can't directly reach, and the cool clinging against my skin and the connection with the earth and the sky is heavenly. My bare toes stretch and wiggle against the stone walk, and my hot, blistered feet revel in the sensation, soothed and washed clean. I stretch my arms over my head, lean my head back and then bow forward, and let the storm pour over every inch of me, regardless of the strange looks from the drivers stuck in rush hour traffic as they crawl slowly past my house. Thunder sounds again, and another shiver runs down my spine.

This isn't a giddy, laughing, dancing, head-rush, green skies thunderstorm; those will come later in the season. But it's spring and summer's first kiss, their greeting to me and their invitation - they are here, and they are making a place for me in the world, if I can and will meet them there. It feels like welcome, and like stretching muscles I forgot I had, and like remembering how to breathe.

It's already moving on now, and I'm back on the sofa with my wet hair and clingy damp shirt and cold feet, loving every inch of sensation.....