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Dearest Night Owls,

I could barely hold it together through the night. I did, thankfully, stay awake through my shift. By the time my relief showed up, late after 07:00 AM, I couldn't even focus on the computer screen anymore. Letters on the screen just looked like gibberish to me. I knew that I had a scheduled three hour class, from 09:00 AM - 12:00 PM, this morning but I also knew that I didn't have it in me to stay up any later than I had to. I went home, made myself some breakfast of too much carbohydrates, and waited for 09:00 AM. I have a means to record classes and trainings, on my computer, so I don't have to worry about missing something important. Once the class started, I started recording, and I got ready for bed. I have to say, virtual classes have been a major blessing since this hellish tragedy of COVID-19 started. It has made my life so much easier. I got dressed for bed, did my bedtime routine, and placed my eye mask over my face with the hope that I was way too exhausted and tired to have any issues with staying asleep. Boy was I wrong...

The broken record has, somehow, become even more broken than before. The broken record that is titled Go To Sleep Now And Stay Asleep because, today, that did not happen. I remember waking up, this afternoon, after 01:00 PM. You know how I remember this fact? I remember staring at the time on my phone and thinking to myself, "At least I slept longer than 12:54 PM".

After putting my phone back on its charger, I situated my sleep mask back over my eyes, and attempted to fall back asleep. I don't recall actually falling back asleep, but I obviously went into a somewhat sleep because the next thing that I knew was that a cat was pawing at my face and meowing loudly. My sleep mask was still secured to my face, so all I saw was darkness and the sounds of loud cat meows and purrs only inches away from my face. I lifted my sleep mask, even though I immediately recognized the identity to the cat by the pitch in his voice. It was my sweet, baby James. I gave him some pets and kisses before going back to checking the time on my phone. It was 03:24 PM. I cursed out loud, but quickly got over my irritation after seeing my baby James wanting my attention. How can I be angry when my James sought me out because he needed some attention. I definitely owed him some quality time after I forced him out of hiding, last night, so my guests could see him. James is very anti-social, and does not like to be around strangers. Unlike Chester, who craves the spotlight.

Chester & James

Photo by: Destiny Topolski

I gave James a little more attention before I attempted to go back to sleep. The second time, thankfully, I was able to fall back into a REM sleep cycle. I even remember the dream that I had because it was horrific. It was one of those really, and quite literally, unreal dreams that was hard to follow from start to finish. The best way to describe my dream was a war that occurred between reality and fantasy. Reality in that there was a great deal of reality-based situations mixed in with well-known cartoon characters from Disney movies. How could anything, that involves Disney, be horrifying? Only in my head can my brain turn something magical into a nightmare. In my dream, there was a literal war going on amongst Disney characters in a reality-based landscape of the Portland Metro Area. The third time, I wasn't the one to wake myself up. Evan woke me up after 07:00 PM, so I didn't oversleep. I woke up feeling like I was pinned down in the bed by something incredibly heavy laying on top of me. I did not want to get out of bed, though I really couldn't even if I wanted to. Eventually, the weight finally lifted and I rolled myself out of bed.

I spent the rest of the night in a fog, and I was freezing. As soon as I walked downstairs and into the living room, I laid down on the couch and placed a blanket over me. I only sat up, to try and start typing in a blog post but I was too tired to think. Evan made dinner, and we watched the newest episode of The Handmaid's Tale on Hulu.

I THANK GOD that tomorrow is Friday. I desperately need to rest this weekend, though, I do have activities planned out for Saturday. I am going to be still on the go, as soon as I clock out at work at 7:00 AM on Saturday morning. I just want to GO TO SLEEP!