12 Jun
Right, I need to tell someone this because my husband's eyes glazed over when I tried to explain why I was almost crying at the breakfast table this morning. I slept. Like, actually slept. Not the patchy, wake-up-at-3am-with-my-heart-hammering, lie-there-catastrophising-about-absolutely-everything sleep I've had for what feels like the last six months. Actual, real, woke-up-when-my-alarm-went-off sleep. I lay there for a second just checking it was real. For context, I'm 42 and I've been in this weird limbo of not knowing whether I'm perimenopausal or just completely falling apart from normal life stress. Two kids (13 and 10, both chaotic), a job that doesn't stop, a mum who needs more from me every month. I've been going round to the GP saying I'm exhausted and anxious and can't think straight, and getting told it's probably stress, maybe depression, have you tried mindfulness? And I've been nodding along while internally screaming that something feels different, something has shifted, this isn't just stress, I know what stress feels like. Anyway. I've been keeping a rough note on my phone for the last few weeks. Just jotting down sleep, how the day felt, where I am in my cycle, what I ate for breakfast (I read something about protein in the morning and thought, fine, I'll try it, nothing to lose). Nothing scientific, just a little log so I could look back and see if there's any pattern rather than feeling like every bad day is random and endless. I cannot tell you if the breakfast thing is doing anything or if it's coincidence or if I just happened to have a good night. I'm not making any claims. But I wrote it down this morning. Circled it, actually. Because I needed to remember that this is possible. That my body can still do this. If you're in the early stages of all this and feeling like you're too young to be here and too tired to figure out what's happening, I just wanted to say: you're not imagining it, and sometimes things do shift, even a little bit. Sending that out to whoever needs it today. x