my new schedule

it's amazing the number of people who have called or emailed me - encouraging me to start blogging again. and i agree - blogging is a great way to stay in touch with people. i enjoy reading friends' blogs. i enjoy having friends read mine and comment on it. it's an easy way to keep up on other people's lives.

i'm in my sixth week of "not working" now. and while sometimes i'm bored and depressed and lonely and feel quite purposeless - i really can't imagine going back to work. i don't know if i will. i'm still busy enough with sensaria - but it's stuff that i can do on my own schedule, in my pajamas, on a blanket in the front yard, whatever. i love that.

i don't have to wake up at any certain time.

but i still do. because. well, those of you who know me, you know me. i like to wake up early.

but i do have something new and exciting. well, not really new. but something old that reemerged. i started using a different alarm clock. and it REALLY makes ALL the difference. my old alarm clock was so harsh and jarring. quite day ruining, really. that sound made me want to scream. i never wanted to snooze, because then i'd have to hear that awful noise again. but i recently started using this old travel alarm clock which someone gave me to take to ecuador with me - because it doesn't give off any light and i really like sleeping in complete darkness. besides the fact that it doesn't give off any light - this alarm is quite plesant. i don't mind it at all. in fact, i don't mind at all hitting the snooze button twenty or thirty times. seriously.

i remember in ecuador, i pretty much always woke up before my alarm clock. i had a horrible time sleeping there, and always wanted to get up as soon as possible. i always had such a hard time falling asleep. i remember laying in that really hard and uncomfortable bed, in that really cold room, being really sad and homesick and awake for much of the night. every night. and then at some point i'd fall asleep. and have awful dreams. every night. not just regular bad dreams. but awful dreams that drained every bit of energy and optimism and hope right out of me. i would wake up emotionally exhausted and really, really sad. the dreams were always incredibly sad. so i remember waking up and looking at that little alarm clock thinking to myself, "well, it's only 4:30 am, i should probably stay in bed a bit longer - but i just can't stand any more of that horrible sleep."

i think i read a lot.

and then i remember being in class and being so, so tired because i hardly slept. i remember the effort that it took just to hold up my head being too much. let alone think. let alone "walk" to and from school - 40 nearly sprinting minutes each way - four times every day. somehow i did it. no wonder i had so little energy left to speak spanish with my host family. that's the one thing about that trip that i kind of regret. i try not to regret it because i know i was doing the best i could. but it's sad that i didn't talk more. it's sad because not talking is what kept me feeling so isolated and homesick. and it's also sad because my host family was amazing. really great people. and i would have loved to get to know them better. but i just couldn't.

i think they saw that. and being the great people they were, they loved me a lot and accepted me exactly as i was. i know they wished that i talked more, but they didn't give me a hard time about it. and they always included me in everything, and had a few huge family dinners in my honor - and they talked to me plenty knowing that i understood everything even if i was too scared to talk.

so that's what i thought of as my alarm clock went off this morning. and i said to myself, "toni, you might as well blog about that. just to get back in the habit. if nothing else."