Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night

It's 3:00am and I've been awake about an hour. Bedtime was after the 10:00pm news. Here I am keeping my computer company and reading my book. Everyone else in this household is sleeping. Hello. Anybody out there?

Last evening we watched (a rerun I think) of a segment on "60 Minutes" about the value of a good night's sleep. The downside of cutting corners on sleep is a change in metabolism. Research showed healthy college-aged subjects becoming pre-diabetic after five days of disturbed sleep. The participants were sleep deprived either by quantity or quality of sleep. Some were bombarded with noise while they slept that kept them from deep sleep. The researcher proposed one cause of our national obesity epidemic was lack of sleep.

My husband and I watched the show together. When he went to bed he dug his sleep apnea equipment out and plugged it in. It usually sits idly by while he snores, whizzles, and struggles in his sleep. I must have cast him a look or commented on his "noise"also disturbing my sleep.

I'm still woke up tonight long before the early sunrise.

I worked the night shift most of my working years with compromised sleep. That might suffice for an excuse of sorts for gaining weight but not sure it works as an excuse when you are retired.

I am still struggling with gaining weight easily after the big diet. Perhaps months of too low calorie intake set me up for failure. I don't know. I am currently 7 lbs. up from my low of last December when I declared I would stop dieting for a while. I am getting a good amount exercise but not obsessively walking ten miles a day. I'm behaving most of the time but paying dearly for the day or two a week when I don't.

Maybe I am just too self centered. Too food obsessed. Can I still blame the starving Chinese children for my predicament? Growing up, the mantra was to not waste food because children in China were starving. Last year I age the egg whites and tossed the yolks. Then I felt remorse for the waste. Without a dog it was hard to know who to feed all those yolks. In the last year and a half I have asked God's grace to just eat what I should, not everyone else's food. Grace. Abundant grace is available and that will be my answer. It's not all about me.

Time to change the words to that Dylan Thomas poetry. ---Do go gentle into that good night. No rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Good Night all.