Love it when that happens.

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I went to bed at about 21:00, a bit before but that was my count.  Rounding up, so that when I figure an alarm time I make sure to sleep at least eight hours.  It's a goal.  Not always doable but, generally, lately, that works.  Less sleep, and for a while I work much better if I am miserable.  And sleeping about six hours really does improve output, until it flips my sleep schedule.  That is guaranteed.  Then I need some unknown, unknowable period of recovery and another unknowable period to shift my sleep cycle back to nights.  That flip will happen, from time to time, just not as often if I sleep enough.  Basically, I am fragile.  So a major change in weather, a serious emotional or spiritual crisis or, sometimes, just because, and my schedule flips.  I can't change that fact, but I can extend a regular sleep cycle, or crush it, through conscious or unconscious activity.

So, I set the alarm for an nine hours.  Setting the alarm with an extra hour... is helpful.  When I am doing well, I will wake right at eight hours, when not, I might need a bit of that extra.  The goal, to my mind, whatever the case, is to wake before the alarm goes off.  It is a joy to not hear the alarm, to wake naturally.  This morning?  Right at 5:56!  Four minutes before the alarm I woke.  Before checking I almost went back to sleep.  Had to look first.  Oh, I'll take it.  It's the little things, sometimes.

Today?  I honestly don't know.  The goals are simple.  First, to install the r.o., cycle the tank several times, and have that done, ready, and filled.  Then, laundry and dishes.  Not sure I can focus, and maintain that for the tasks, but there it is.  I still wake to some pain in that shoulder blade, but it passes within two or three hours, mostly, usually.  Effort can bring some pain back.  But if I am in a better general condition, the pain is irrelevant.  If not, a few anacin takes up the slack enough to do more, or just tolerate the pain as I sit if nothing is 'doing'.  Today it is easily tolerable.

My life is full of little rules, minor understandings, simple possibilities.  I have learned to simply accept what happens, looking for opportunities for work, pushing when I can, relaxing when I must (most of the time).  While it isn't a perfect life, I don't believe there is a perfect life.  Life, in this reality, is a matter of patience and suffering.  Successes, as with joys and pleasures, are very small dots on a very long line that is called life.  Like sea creatures that come up, once in a while, for air, most of our lives are spent at varying depths, moving from this place to that, searching for enough  food to eat, and finding 'joy' by rising to the surface once in a great while.  If you can learn to live with that, life is good.  If you can't, or haven't learned to surface well, life is very difficult.  I have learned, that's all.  Perhaps the trick is to learn, sometimes, to live without as much pleasure?  To test one's abilities going with less?  A joy in itself?  Yeah, maybe.  But I am there, so...

Hmm...  Tried to call my mother yesterday.  It seems she may have gone to bed early.  Sometimes she just needs that, sometimes she overworks and has to sleep a bit early.  All good.  She, too, wouldn't really change much.  She likes her life as it is.  Mostly.  I'll see if she is up, or at least near the phone.  She's a morning flower, so that usually isn't a problem.  Oh... I'll get the grill going for lunch, make coleslaw too, and having either brots or a steak.  Might cook it all and have something around just for reheating.  Later.