The benefits of sleeplessness

Susan, a good friend, said it best this morning on Facebook. She wrote, "Good morning world, let the stress begin......"

My stress begins in the middle of the night. I go to bed, find All My Children (AMC) on the DVR, set the TV sleep timer for 60 minutes, make sure the alarm is set for the morning, watch AMC, and eventually fall asleep.

At around 2:00 in the morning, like clock work, I wake up and my brain is alive with thoughts swirling through it like the tornado in the Wizard of Oz. I scramble with all sorts of fears and cheers. Like:

1. The Billionaires vs The Millionaires in the NFL lockout and the possibility of no football this coming season. Yes, this has since been resolved, but I spent many sleepless nights prior to the resolution disturbed about not seeing my favorite teams kick around the pigskin.
2. The President and the ongoing difficulties with the National Debt Crisis and the distinct possibility that when he calls me for help, I won't hear the phone because I'll be scrubbed in in a difficult interventional procedure at Manatee Memorial Hospital.
3. Psycho klepto nutcases strolling around my garden and yard looking for plants and ornaments.
4. The price of gas and how it's once again on the rise and will those gas pilfers try to siphon gas from my tank while I'm at work.
5. The total heat wave that's boiling the country and the interminable wait for the influx of tourists headed this way to cool off and to eat at my restaurant. Geesh, just get here already!
6. The fear that I'm going to get out of shape because the Village Bike Shop still hasn't called to say my bike is finally repaired. For crying out loud, in all this time a new bike could have been built and shipped to my door! 

My mind is churning like garlic butter, and I pretty much hate garlic. Then I do what I swear I won't do every night when I go to bed. I turn on the TV. (Dr. Oz and sleep experts would have a cow). I rewind the DVR to find where I fell asleep on AMC, set the TV sleep timer for 30 minutes, and as I watch Erica and the rest of the Pine Valley cuckoo birds make a mess out of their lives, I relax and once again drift off to never never land.

Sometimes at 4:00 am there's a rerun of neurotic brain activity, sometimes not. But by 5:00 am, I'm snuggled in and comfy like a baby bunny in a burrow. My pillows, sheet and quilt, and my mattress are situated just perfectly. Visions of sugar plums are dancing in my head. (What the heck are sugar plums and do I want them dancing in my head? My head has just settled down and really, there should be no dancing going on, unless it's Christmas Eve or Donna and I are on the bar at Totaro's  Ristorante.)

Then, it's 5:10 am and the alarm goes off. OMG! I just got to sleep in a peaceful manner! I grab the remote and hit the snooze. I do that two more times. Finally, I stretch, thank God for another day, remind God that I hate getting up this early and perhaps I should be my own boss and buy a restaurant......STOP RIGHT THERE, I already did that.

I turn on the Channel 7 news, get out of bed, do my whole entire morning routine, then return to the bathroom being sure to put on the big lights so I can start my make-up. I finish my make-up at the make-up table.

That wasn't always my routine. I used to put on make-up with the low level bathroom lights. Then I'd arrive at work and look in the mirror to put on my scrub hat. The face in the mirror was reminiscent of Betty Davis with all that garish make-up in the movie "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?"

Since it wasn't my plan to be a Betty Davis look-alike, I'm shocked and appalled and trying to remember who might have seen me on my way in to work and was the make-up readily apparent. Who am I kidding? Of course, it was.

I carefully tear off some toilet paper and ever so gently try to soften the look and remove some of the clownishness. Underneath all that is the sunscreen, moisturizer, and firming and lifting lotion that I've been applying for years. Does it work? I don't know, but I sure as heck am not going to stop using it now because at this stage I can't take any chances. THAT would be stress!

So like Susan said, "Good morning world, let the stress begin......" because as long as I've got on my sunscreen, moisturizer, and firming and lifting lotion, I'm ready for anything! After all, I did problem solving throughout the night, so this day will be a cinch.