tired

I'm tired of waking up in this haze of some parts despondency, apathy, despair, and general mutedness. I don't even care to figure out the percentages because these are just feelings, illusory and ephemeral. Logically, I should be able to just wave them away with a fluttering of my hand, and get on with life.

Got to bed at 1:40am. Will try again tonight.

problem

I have a very real problem. I cannot get myself to go to sleep at a reasonable hour. Every morning, I wake up vowing that when *this* day ends, I will be disciplined and put away my tablet or ebook and just close my eyes in bed next to my daughter and go to sleep by 11:30pm. Yet every day for the last two weeks, I have been sleeping at 2am or 3am. It's exhausting, may be part of why I have been so depressed and morose, and does not do my sense of life any favors.

Why do I keep doing this? Why can't I seem to stop?

Could it be just a symptom of how unhappy I am with my life right now? How I can't stand to just roll over and admit the end of another day in which I have done little that brings me personal joy? Could it be that I've just given up on fighting for any semblance of a disciplined life? That I have given in to slothfulness?

Trying again tonight to sleep at a more reasonable hour, and trying to make that stick for the next seven days. Sigh.

an interlude by a writer's block

So of course last night's tranquility was not to be taken for granted. I very rarely stop looking over my shoulder during times of relatively more ease to just enjoy the moment. I did so last night. Then I remembered this morning that I have a document for something due sometime today. I am an extremely slow typer in Chinese, not to mention my insecurity about more formal Chinese grammar, etc. Now it's 11pm and I've just managed to sneak out of the mosquito-netting-encased bed wherein my son sleeps and in which he still insists every night that one of the parental units must be present at least until he falls asleep. It took him about 1.5 hours tonight. I was getting a backache and very little done in the bed, so I must now brave the hungry mosquitoes that had hitherto been whining longingly on the other side of the net.

Must get document done...must...argh...

On the bright side, I finally rearranged Declan's toys and books vs. my ad-hoc "kitchen" area as well as changing the lighting elements around the apartment so that everything feels more efficient/neater/more aesthetically pleasing. Hooray for that. Too bad we didn't do it this way right from the start. Live and learn.

Back to writing...

savoring a brief moment of victory

It's only nine pm, and yet both kids are in bed after 30 minutes of storybook reading. The living room and makeshift kitchen areas are relatively clean, and all the dishes have been carried to the shared kitchen down the dorm hall and washed and drying.

For dinner, I used the leftover spinach soup from yesterday--which is exactly the amount I needed--to cook a batch of couscous (it's amazing how quickly couscous become ready to eat. I'm honestly surprised it's not more popular outside of Middle Eastern cultures). I accompanied the couscous with used vegetables I'd cooked and frozen before we left for Chinese New Year break; after thawing out the sweet potato and garlic mash and carrot and turnip juliennes, I added them to some freshly chopped green pepper and cilantro and sauteed everything together until it smelled like they'd absorbed the dash of soy sauce and pinch of sugar. The whole dinner prep took about 15 minutes. Everyone ate everything and no more leftovers!

The above details may be rambling and insignificant to most anyone else, but I'm taking the time to chronicle an all-too-rare night by the end of which I do not as usual feel defeated, like a failure, and dreading another day of futility. Instead, I actually feel like I'm winning right now. At running the household, at spending quality time with the kids, at providing nourishing food affordably. A far cry from even just a few hours ago when I felt harassed by Petra's terrible twosomeness, her peeing on the couch and then stripping naked and refusing to get dressed again (and lots and lots of other things), and I was struggling with some online accounts, and I was feeling ordered around and snapping at Daniel... Things turned around really quickly, and all I can say now is: praise.

Tomorrow is another day.