How tired am I?

Do you want to know how tired I am? Do you? Well, I am going to tell you. I am SO tired that I nearly fell asleep during a bikini wax today. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a bikini wax but I can assure you that they are no walk in the park. At times today, I swore the hair in my bikini line was rooted to my spine. And, by the way, I do realize that I have reached an all-time low by writing about my bikini line on my blog. We’re all grown-ups here. Put on your big girl panties and deal with it. Despite the excruciating pain of the bikini wax, I still managed to nod off during the moments when my skin wasn’t being ripped off. Well, that’s how it felt, anyway.

I also nodded off during my pedicure and during my eyebrow wax. Which explains how 90% of my eyebrows were ripped off of my face. I really didn’t care what the wax girl (I have no idea what else to call her) did so long as she let me rest my head on the back of the chair and close my eyes. The result is that I barely recognize myself when I look in the mirror. I’ve never had such thin eyebrows before.

And before anyone makes a “poor little baby who spent the day at the salon” remark, I should tell you that I have worked late every night for many, many nights. The earliest I have returned home is 10:30 and the latest was close to 1 AM. And I have to go back to work to make up for the time I lost while suffering all manner of torture for the sake of beauty.

I am going out of town and spending the weekend with some girlfriends this weekend. The excitement and anticipation of a weekend of girl time is the only thing keeping me upright. Every time I think about my weekend plans, I feel a surge of adrenaline and I murmur a small prayer of thanks. Otherwise I would be doing a faceplant on my keyboard.

And now, if you don’t mind, me and my tender bikini area and my eyebrow-less face are going to work.

Listening to Ave Maria, Barbra Streisand

Too often

Last night, as I sat in the emergency department next to the stretcher upon which Brad’s frail little grandmother rested, I wrote a kick ass post. If I do say so myself. The only problem is that I was smote from Heaven with an invisible force which erased fully half of the post. And I don’t know about you but I have not the energy to pour into writing another kick ass post. Because, when I am really on my game and write well, the words just flow from my fingertips without a whole lot of effort or brain power on my part. It was almost impossible to write another post as inspired as the first post. So I gave up. Because I have been thinking of giving up completely anyway. On blogging, I mean. I keep wondering if anyone would even notice and if I would miss it. Of course, I know the answer to that second part. I would miss it terribly. But it seems more and more to me that I have very little interesting information to pass along these days. And I feel badly about that because I don’t want to let down those people who come here to read my posts everyday.

I am very tired. My trip to Seattle was fabulous. Utterly fabulous. But good Lordy! It exhausted me. Add to that the fact that I had to go sit with Brad’s grandmother last night until 1:00 am when his parents were able to make it to the hospital. Once I got home, it took me two hours to wind down so I didn’t go to sleep until 3AM.

When I am tired, I am very emotionally vulnerable. I cry a lot when I am tired. Even when I am crying, I know it is because I am just exhausted. But it doesn’t help to know such things. It still feels bad to cry. I don’t mean just a little bit of crying. I mean Niagara Falls. I mean heaving sobs. I mean a full blown pity party. I call my friends when I get tired of crying to myself and they shush me softly at first and then give me pep talks and finally get exasperated and decide they have no idea what to say to me but they have better things to do than to listen to me bitch and moan all day. I can’t blame them really. I get on my own nerves when I am like this.

Yesterday was my day for crying. Today was my day to look in the mirror and question every aspect of myself. I criticized my nose, my hair, my eyebrows. I cursed the skin on my chest because it looks perpetually sunburned from my years in the sun as a lifeguard. I scowled at my stretchmarks and felt sick when I looked at what seems to me to be far too much padding on my hips, belly and thighs. I looked at my feet and wished they were smaller. Basically, I could find nothing about myself that seemed acceptable and certainly nothing to be praised.

This growing older business is not for me. I may be having this small crisis because my birthday looms near. Every year on my birthday I tell myself that I will look fabulous by the time I see another birthday. Every year I am faced with the reality that I never change much and that I have seen my best years already.

I am still tired. I hope to feel rested when I wake up tomorrow. Maybe I will be able to look in the mirror and like what I see. Maybe not.

I do know that the lyrics from one song have been running through my head all day.

One of these days I’m gonna love me And feel the joy of sweet release One of these days I’ll rise above me And then at last I’ll know some peace Then I’m gonna laugh a little Maybe even cry a little One of these days I’m gonna love me