Wake up fresh

Julia ♦ November 4, 2021 ♦ Leave a comment

Keillor forgot to mention how much a cat can help.  Al with his favorite cuddly cure, 1969.

“The best cure for a disastrous day is to go to bed early and wake up fresh in the morning and start over.” — Garrison Keillor

I totally agree with Keillor about this.  The problem is, a disastrous day usually leaves me frustrated, agitated, angry or in some other state not conducive to a good night’s rest.  All the more reason to learn effective methods of coping with stress in a way that is responsive without being reactive.  I’m making progress, but it’s a long uphill effort.  The worse the day goes, the more likely I will be up late trying to redeem what I see as too many failed efforts and too much wasted time.

Children are good role models to keep in mind here, especially very young ones.  Almost every baby I have ever known is the happiest, cutest and most delightful after they awaken from a good, sound sleep.  And when they are cranky and woeful, sleep is almost certainly the remedy they need most.  Most all of them seem to reach a point of auto-shutdown.  No matter how hard they are fighting it, they keel over into a zonked-out visit to slumber-land.  I do that same thing occasionally, but not nearly often enough.

I’m going to try taking a cue from our grandson, sleeping my troubles away, insofar as I am able.  I’ve learned to leave the evening hours to calmer, more relaxing pursuits if I possibly can, to give me a fighting chance of drifting off to sleep at a reasonable time.  Of course, sometimes a day becomes disastrous much too early for bedtime, and there’s no possibility of napping.  In that case, there’s nothing for it but to somehow get through the afternoon and evening.

On those days, let’s keep reminding ourselves that no matter how hard the rest of the day is, we’ll be able to leave it all behind (even if only temporarily) for a much needed visit from the sandman.  Until then, to quote Keillor again, “Be well, do good work, and keep in touch.”

One year ago this week:

Made better

This post was first published seven years ago today. The original post, comments and photo are linked, along with two other related posts, below. These links to related posts, and their thumbnail photos, do not appear in the blog feed; they are only visible when viewing the individual posts by clicking on each one. I have no idea why, nor do I know how they choose the related posts. That’s just the way WordPress does things.