I did it. It was not easy, but I did it. I followed my new schedule, and because my admin portion included laundry and refilling a prescription (and waiting in the parking lot an hour for it), and because Mom wanted to share with me some spiritual thoughts from her church leader (I know it means a lot to her and it doesn’t hurt me any to give it a listen), I was going, going, going non-stop from 6:30 AM to about 11:00 PM.

Already by 12:30 in the afternoon as I was coming out of the gym, I got a little touch of the spine tingle. Sounds cheesy and overwrought, but it was a beautiful day and already I had taken the dog to the park, done my daily post, worked a little on the novel, put my laundry in, and worked out. It felt great. And being on a schedule allows you to feel that you’ve done everything you had to, done the best you could, been perfect.

By dinner, I was yawning, though, and I told Mom that I’d never been so tired in my life. She got concerned and got a touch lecturey (she’s not a lecturer so this is all relatively speaking). I wished I had never said anything (or not said it so severely) and I told her as much. She doesn’t want me to over-do it. She said that would set me back.

She’s got a valid point, but the flip side of that is giving into my exhaustion and having a boring, lazy, unproductive, and self-indulgent week like the one following my getting sick. With my goals and ambitions being so big and my not feeling like I have a lot of time (making money? hello) and having experienced the benefits of scheduling and pressing on like a trooper, any give in the ground I’ve hard-won seems like a step backwards onto a slippery slope of snares and things injurious.

Part of the problem is that I’m just not getting quality rest at night, and as long as I’m on all this medication, there’s nothing to be done about that. And I kind of feel (& hope) that even if in the short-term I’m over training and over stressed, that eventually my body and mind will adjust and adapt and be the stronger for it. I think of recruits in bootcamp–now I don’t approve of a lot of military ways and means, but those folks are pushed to their utter limits plus, and seem to come out the other side lean, strong, tough, and disciplined. Perhaps a little damaged, too, I don’t know, but I’m not running that risk, I don’t think. So, there’s a kind of model and precedent set for me. I’m going to try to keep going at this pace.

By the way, I dreamed about coke again last night. I was operating on the DL and Mom searched my bag (the one I took from the dead old lady’s apartment and which I keep receipts in now, incidentally), and I made a bit of an ass of myself trying to get with some girl. There’s something interesting about my having so many dreams like this. Does it reveal anything? Are they affected by the medication?