Sleep Patterns

Not been good these past three or four weeks - it is 00:35 and I'm wide awake and feel up to working for a couple of hours still.  I realise that I need to get some sort of pattern returned to get things to normal and part of my lifestyle changes are to get regular sleep and enough of it.  There are a number of things that need to change but it can't happen atomically, it will have to evolve, too often I've changed everything overnight and that just isn't sustainable.  Dietary changes will involve far more than a one off correction as the shock of going towards a more "raw" diet cannot be imposed on your body just like that you need to gradually grow into it.


I figure that it will take me one to two months to ease in properly to a point where I will be pulling all the strands together including diet, exercise, regular habits including sleeping properly etc.  I really want to be in a position to bring in improvements and see if I can maintain this into the year and start to see results.  My weight of course but also my well being and by that I mean my head as well as my body - I find that I dislike myself a fair bit and that's for all sorts of reasons.  I'm trying desperately to stop looking back and regretting but I find myself occasionally beating myself up for stuff that whilst I may regret it, I know I cannot go back and change it, I can only change the now.


Tomorrow is a family outing, the girls have bought us tickets to see Wicked  which I am very much looking forward to.  As it is a Bank Holiday tomorrow (well today) the trains are a bit few and far between but that's OK we will just get there a little earlier than normal.  


I spoke to my mum this morning and they had a good New Year's Eve and went to my Niece's place not far from them.  She did very well which is nice to hear.  Unfortunately, I don't see eye to eye with my niece either :-(  Bit of a shame really but after spending a lot of time and money to assist and finance her through education I found that it wasn't appreciated and we fell out.  I do have a very specific threshold for having the piss taken out of me and once you've over stepped the mark, well.... You've over stepped the mark and there isn't much of a way back.  Very few make it back into the sphere if they've had me over in some way or play me as stupid.  I hate stupidity and worse than that I hate it when people think I'm stupid, gullible or a push over.  I have a  very open and helpful spirit, I will try my utmost but once it goes to taking advantage of me or going beyond decency then the drawbridge comes up and you don't get in again.  I would hate to be on the wrong side of me.  Up come the defences and I will acknowledge you but don't think anything or any quarter will ever be given again.  I find it worse that other people are taken in by this particular charade but I do have to accept that I may be completely wrong about things and that they need to find out themselves.  


I've been wounded but no more, the damage is done.  As long as that is where it stops then that is fine.  For my part, I just don't get involved or take any part in the charade any more.  


So what else troubles me?  Without doubt it is my dad and what is going to happen.  There's an inevitability about it and that's true with us all, we are all going to die, perhaps we don't see it or block it out but in my dad's case he's looking straight down the barrel on it.  I remember thinking to myself about this when I was awaiting diagnosis - I was pretty sure that I'd die to start with but then got far more positive even before diagnosis.  I was worried about all the stuff I'd leave undone and how much time I'd have and what I'd do with that time.  Dad I guess has done pretty much what he wanted to do and his retirement was one of country living, pottering around in the garden, going to local attractions (gardens and the like) but holidays had long ago disappeared.  So in a way, I wonder what he would want to do with the time left and basically, it is nothing, just waiting around really.  I find that sad and in fact in the last few weeks, I've looked at how cruel ageing is.  I see friends of mine with sharp minds (like dad) who find they can hardly hold their hands still or find that they are having difficulty driving or enjoying the active lives they once had and age creeps up and makes us deaf and makes our eye sight poor, ridicules us and our once fit and active bodies start to give up on us.


Well, I'm rambling now and so will pack it in but one of the things I now feel is that there ought to be some way of being able to grow old gracefully and without trapping a great mind inside a shell that deteriorates around it.