For quite some time after Pat died I was unable to sleep. I was tired all the time. This is normal I hear. It’s a combination of grief, sleeping alone for the first time in 20 years, stress and anxiety. But then came a time when I was sleeping well. I felt ready for my days when I woke in the morning. I was rested and ready for what the world was going to bring me. It felt amazing!
But here I am again. A year and a half later and I am not sleeping.
It’s been awhile now without being able to sleep through the night. Trust me I am exhausted and I have no problem wanting to climb in to bed and doze off, but I can’t. My mind is always racing. It races right into the wee hours of the morning, even waking me up throughout the night. I am once again utterly exhausted. I just want to sleep.
As I have talked about before, the pressure of being a solo parent is overwhelming. But it’s not just the parenting part of life that is killing me. It’s everything I now have to do alone. I am running the whole household on my own. I am alone in the cleaning, shopping, prepping, finances, holidays, lawn work, worrying, planning…everything. It is all on me. It is too much. I am mom and dad. I do the “mens” jobs around the house, as well as the “womens” jobs. It’s all me. I can’t leave it and expect my spouse to do it, or clean it or put it away. What I don’t do doesn’t get done. I know that sounds trivial, but the number of things that have to be taken care of all the time is unbelievable. Not to mention exhausting.
I think the worrying on my own is the hardest right now. I worry about the kids. I worry about the finances. I worry about the house. The stresses build up on me and it’s just me to try to figure them out. I know I can do it on my own, but it makes my brain crazy. The thoughts that run through my head as I try to go sleep are paralyzing. I can’t make them stop or even pause for a moment to get a moment of shut-eye.
People have a hard time understanding this exhaustion. By the end of the day I just want to sit and do nothing. I don’t want to talk on the phone or go out for a drink. I am completely spent from just getting through the day. It’s not getting through the day like it was when Pat first died. That was a matter of survival. Not it’s more the constant grind of life on your own. I don’t mean to seem like I am pushing people away or that I am uninterested in their lives. That is not the case. It’s just that mine is so much right now that it’s all I can take on. I need my time. Selfish as it sounds, it is the only thing that keeps me sane.
I am unsure as to why the insomnia has come back around, but I am anxiously awaiting its exit from my life. I am hoping that if I can get a couple good nights sleep I will have a clearer picture of my stress and figure a way out of this haze because…
I am beat. 
Widow with Wings 