Running Ragged

Driving my car today, I wondered how coherent I actually was. I did not doubt my ability to navigate effectively and accurately. My confidence was also high in my driving skills. At the same time, I am painfully aware that I am fuzzy on the exact details of the journey home. Plus, when I finally got here, my phone conversation with my wife is now the vague recollection of an echo. In that bizarre balance that seems to becoming my norm more and more frequently, I accomplished many things today, but I also used every ounce of energy that I could muster.

I am pressing myself to the limit. Some of the causes are unavoidable. One of my co-teachers is out on paternity level. Thus, only two of us are present this week to handle the onslaught of questions from our 40+ students in each section. Beyond that, we are working on research papers, which cause the number of student questions to escalate exponentially. I also have been logging long hours at my daughter's school. Frighteningly enough, I did not go to everything that I was supposed to attend (mostly because I did not trust myself behind the wheel of a car). Yesterday, I was at her school for three hours to help run a TechParent night. Today, my efforts aided in the second session of Poetry Club. Both things were cool, but they also drained me.

Beyond that, though, I have gotten much less sleep recently. I am forcing myself to milk my day for every spare moment. All of the priorities are "vital," both in reality and in my delusional mind, but they are taking their toll. As always, the thing that suffers most is my well-being. It also does not help that my wife is out of town. I always feel more desperate when that is the case.

I did have one moment today that was a "favor" for a friend, but was actually much more for me. A colleague teaches a class on loss. Most of their work centers on the loss of a close friend or family member, or a beloved pet. Still, the instructor has invited my in the past two years, because she understands that I too live with loss. When I spoke last year, I had just discovered Facebook and MySpace. I had also just start this blog. Thus, it was amazing to talk about my disease today. Even though I know the journey gets longer every day, I loved sharing my experiences because I do believe that narcolepsy (as much as I hate it) has saved my life. It has forced me to focus on myself and my true priorities.

I am handling my current exhaustion well. I am well-aware that I am functioning at half-speed at best, but I am more comfortable with that than ever. I know that many of my days are filled with mediocrity, yet that is far superior to one decent day followed by a month or two of misery. At least I can help students in limited ways, rather than being stuck at home. If that day does arrive, though, perhaps some of my friends at Narcolepsy Network will have worked out a cool way for me to still connect to other PWNs around the world. Okay, I must sleep before I fritter away another three hours.