Phew. After a few days of feeling like crap, I feel better today. Like, normal. Actually, my energy came back late last night, and I couldn’t fall asleep until four. Then I woke up five hours later, wide awake. Eventually I dozed back off and got up this afternoon. Since being sick, I’m sleeping in later than usual. And whereas I don’t fundamentally have a problem with that, I’d like to start both going to bed and getting up sooner. My doctor says it’s good to have a consistent schedule, even if you don’t have a job that requires you to have one. “Try to be up by, say, ten every day,” she says.

That seems reasonable.

Last night I dreamed that I was using a funnel to pour gasoline into my refrigerator in the middle of the night. (Weird, I know.) Refrigerators are common in my dreams. Best I can tell, they have to do with stored energy, which apparently I’m low on because I was having to “gas up.” Apparently my subconscious isn’t aware of the stored energy around my waistline. Anyway, when I woke up, my first thought was the dream had to do with my needing to get more quality sleep, since the dream was set in the middle of the night and sleep is the way our bodies “refuel.”

I’ve tried to go to bed sooner and get on a schedule before, and it was mildly successful. But you, know, shit happens. I was thinking about this earlier, that there have been several, maybe dozens, of things I’ve attempted since starting this blog that I haven’t succeeded at–cleaning up my diet (although that’s currently going well), cutting back on Facebook (miserable fail), getting more rest (moderate fail). And whereas I wish I knocked it out of the park in every area of my life, I obviously don’t. I can say, however, that I’m at least willing to try again.

Except for the Facebook thing.

Trying again. That’s what’s on my mind today. Yesterday I talked about a sinus infection I had last year that lasted for three months. This was after two decades of dealing with chronic sinus infections and not making much progress. However, finally, I found something that worked. Likewise, after months of having psoriasis on my elbow, I don’t now. I can’t say exactly what did the trick because I’ve been trying a number of different things, but I can say, “Fuck the dermatologist who told me psoriasis was ‘incurable.'” My point: the body is capable of amazing things when given the right support, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Sometimes you just have to keep at it.

When I was a kid, my dad kept a cartoon taped on the wall at his business. In the drawing, there was a frog being eaten by a giant bird. Like, the frog was in this bird’s mouth. It was a bad day. But the frog, who wasn’t going down without a fight, had its hands clutched around the bird’s throat. The caption said, “Don’t ever give up.” This is something I think about a lot–giving up. Because it’s tempting, especially when you’re up against a wall and things appear to never get better. And I do think there’s value in accepting life as it is. A lot of value, actually. But I don’t think that accepting life as it is means you have to accept that it’s never going to change. I think there’s room for both acceptance and hope. I mean, life always changes, so who’s to say it can’t change for the better?

Last night while lying in bed, I thought of the many things in my life that have changed for the better even though, at one point, I thought they never would–the sinus infections, the psoriasis. My neck and shoulder have been hurting lately, and both my muscles and the pain feel so solid, I wanted to remind myself that few things in our lives are truly solid; everything is subject to change. Plus, when something is bothering me, it’s easy for me to put all my focus on what’s wrong, and I think it’s important to slow down occasionally and focus on what’s right, on what feels good, on what is working.

You know, once every month or two.