9-8-10                  11:32am

There were times in my life when I would have considered an 18 minute yoga video for beginners lame. However, today I approached it with VCR remote in hand and cursing at the tv. Are you supposed to curse at a yoga video? Seems rather un-zen. Anyway, I made it through in about an hour, quite ungracefully, and rather perturbed. If I’m going to go to the effort to get INTO a yoga pose I’d like to stay there for more than 5 seconds (I counted – hence the pause button). You’d think I hadn’t taken a step in 3 years. Yes, Dr. T. I’m a marshmallow. Ya happy?

I woke up this morning at 7:33 thanks to forgetting to take my night meds. I don’t even know what my meds do anymore. I’m just so tired. So I decided to stay up, even though I’d only slept 4 hours. Why not? Well, we’ll get to that later. I’ve been experiencing this thing where I feel very agitated with an extreme desire to move with zero energy or ability to do so, often when I wake up but other times too. It’s like torture. Like being trapped in your own body. With the blanket on I’m too hot, with it off I’m freezing. There are small bursts of energy when I finally flip myself over like a pancake or roll to one side. Then I lay there not moving, wondering why. It’s like all contact from my brain to one or more of my limbs has completely gone away. Sometimes my voice goes on hiatus too. The thoughts are there, but nobody’s answering.

So I finally found the energy and wherewithal to get up and decided to start my journey to non-marshmallowness by attempting to walk to the donut shop. Dr. T had suggested walking somewhere for coffee but I don’t drink coffee, and I like donuts, and I happened to remember there’s a shop up the street. Ooh, I just remembered 7-11’s closer. Might start with that. But I needed to take a shower. So I took a shower and then couldn’t breathe, so out went the donut shop. So I settled on sitting for awhile and then had a bagel and watched Nick, Jr. I was cool with traveling with Dora through the desert to deliver Cowboy cookies to a blue cow named Benny playing harmonica in a rocking chair, but traveling through space to return Inky, Plinky, Blinky, Dinky and Al to the purple planet is a bit much. What do people DO during the day who don’t work or go to school? I sleep until my life starts around three every day. Today I played with Zoe, whom I might add is fucking crazy.

I eventually decided to try one of my many exercise videos that I’ve owned forever and never use. Instead of Richard Simmons that I know I like I figured I’d start with something simple – AM Yoga for Beginners. Grrrr. I even got out my pink yoga mat. I made it through, huffing and puffing and cursing and pausing and cursing some more. It’s supposed to make you feel energized. Energized is not quite the word I would put on it. I feel mentally alert, but I’m physically exhausted, and shaking, and my eyes are watering, and I can’t stop yawning. Not sure what about that is energized.

So now it’s 11:46am. I exercised on purpose today. The result – urge to watch QVC and say, “That shit is whack, man.” Not sure what they’re putting in that AM Yoga video. I’ve been up for 4 hours. In my normal day it would be dinnertime now and I would be off to a group or to see music or something active with people. But no, it’s not even noon. What, the fuck. Seeing my therapist at 2pm. Hoping to be awake for that. I need a nap…

(sigh) 11:52 and it decides to kick in? NOW I’m agitated? It said ENERGIZED not AGITATED. (zap) Breathe… I need structure and people.

-Michelle

© Michelle Routhieaux 2010