Ran into a snag with the Colorado experience. I found myself too tired to sleep last night, and woke at 3 am. I lay awake for hours, until dawn, and then had fitful sleep in five or ten minute bursts. We had an agreement to drive up to my good friend's church, so I didn't get to lie abed for any real rest. So by the time the service was over, and the phenomenally talented organist had finished his postlude, I had just enough energy to hug my friend, introduce my mother, and then glide down the mountain again. No touring Estes Park, no lunch at some funky mountain cafe, no souvenir shopping. No stops in Lyons or Boulder on the way home. I had to come straight home, eat a quick meal to keep my pills from burning my stomach, and then crawl in bed. And what did I find? Once again, I was too tired to sleep, and I lay there, with all four cats pinning me down (and two giving each other the stink eye for being too close to mama), wishing I could nap already. The struggle is real. It's not bad enough that I get physically exhausted on what normal people consider a light activity day. It's not even enough of an insult to injury that sleeping doesn't restore me like normal people. No, I have to take it one step further and not be able to sleep at all. I need to find a new way to make myself fall asleep and stay that way until I've had enough.
The service this morning was lovely. My friend runs a very welcoming congregation, and he is careful in his words and in his choices to be inclusive and non-judgmental. I wish I had had more energy and more focus for the proceedings. I found myself singing words that weren't printed in the hymnal, even though I held it open in my hands and knew exactly where I was in the music. My eyes blurred a couple times, but thankfully not much during the sermon. I was listening, my friend, I swear. But I only had a chai in my belly to absorb the handful of medications and supplements I'd downed in the parking lot, and fatigue and heartburn were taking their toll. I'm glad that my mother had a good time, got to meet my dear friend, and enjoyed the scenery on the drive up and all around the church on the hill.
I got a call later from the friend who went house-hunting with me yesterday. He actually apologized for being the kind of guy who looks very critically at houses he wants to buy. He thinks that this is going to be difficult for me to tolerate. Silly, silly man. Over the last 18 years, I house shopped for 5 different homes with Mr S-P. If I could handle his critical eye, and was comfortable with his vision of the bones of a house over its finishes ("If we knock down this wall, expand this room, tear down this ceiling, fence all the way to here, put a window in there..."), then my friend is the perfect client for me. Being with someone who recognizes things that are out of code (like the uncapped PVC vent pipe we saw, or the electrical conduit that ran along the back of a house, crossing over a door that had no opening on the inside) only helps me hone my skills in finding red flags for him and for future clients. He's teaching me more than he imagines. I'm so happy to work with him, and he barely even realizes it.
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