I’m finding it hard to hold onto ideas. I feel like I’m running a study on sleep deprivation.

There are few times in ones life when we get to try something completely new for … say a few months… something you might not voluntarily walk into, but which changes your perspective on life for only a fixed period of time. Like spending two weeks getting around only on your hands and knees. Or walking backwards everywhere you go. Or only allowing yourself to run when you’re out of your home or apartment (no walking). (not sure why all my random ideas have to do with personal transportation…). The point is, we don’t often choose to do experiments with our perspective very often.

Perhaps we should.

The current experiment with perception I’m going through is extended sleep deprivation. I had a baby a couple weeks ago, and instead of being at a point in my job and work where I could just go on maternity leave and spend a couple months holing up at home and living in my pajamas while my new child learned how to cope with nights and days, I am trying to plow ahead and continue the launch of a book and building my author platform. Which… unfortunately… is exactly the sort of thing that is not 9-5 and does not have a maternity leave option. Traditional jobs do have their benefits… Instead, I’m hacking this all on my own*, and that means that instead of napping when baby naps, I’m trying to get work done.

Which means I’m not getting enough sleep.
I remember a friend saying that at Uni, one can do two of three things : Study, Party or Sleep. You can do any two of those things well, but no one gets to do three. I’m feeling the truth of that right now. I’m thanking my lucky stars that at this point I’m pulling through ok, considering the deprivation, but it’s certainly the sort of thing that would age you if you try and do it too long. Little guy is doing quite well generally, so I’ve every hope that I’ll be able to get him to start sleeping longer stretches at night before too long.

But at the moment, I’m realizing how recalling proper nouns is so much harder for me when I’m chronically tired. And how keeping a new thought in my head, like a fresh idea I’ve just created, is so much harder when you’re tired. The ideas still come, but they float away, sometimes before I’ve a chance to write them down or even properly store them in my memory.

It’s a weird and annoying feeling.

I just finished reading, “Elizabeth is Missing”, which is the story of an 82 year old woman and her development into fairly advanced alzheimers, while also trying to solve the decades old disappearance of her sister. It’s an interesting premise, and a great cozy-mystery type read. But sort of disturbing in how I felt like I was identifying with some of her struggles with alzheimers as I handle sleep deprivation. Not a good feeling.

With that in mind, I’m going to bed.