Fall Tired

Every Fall I get tired. I mean really tired. It happens about a week after I notice that the air feels different. Summer may still claim some temperatures but I can feel there is a crispness in the air that always means Fall is on its way.

I can’t get up when my alarm goes off and I am in bed at 8:30 pm (ok some night 8 pm). Doesn’t seem to matter how much sleep I actually get, I am tired all the time. The good news is that this passes. And I do not feel this way for the entire Winter. But being a light being, I am ridiculously sensitive to the change in light.

I have often said I am like a chicken. They get up in the early light that most humans cannot even detect and go to sleep as soon as night begins to fall. I am like that too. I know it is weird but it is just how my body operates. Light wakes me up and gets me moving and darkness brings on sleep and rest. It is just like that for me.

And the tired that I feel now is just my body adjusting to this change in light and season. And for the first time, I am not convinced something is wrong. I have come to understand that regardless of the weirdness factor, this is just how I am…every year. And it doesn’t mean anything sinister is happening, it is just my body’s way of making the change from the lightness of Spring and Summer and transitioning into the darkerness of Fall and Winter.

I used to dread this feeling and change but now I welcome it. I like the idea of doing less, reading more, writing more and just generally getting more rest. My hard driving nut job brain doesn’t like it all that much but we (all the many people who live inside my head) have come to just ignore her loud complaints and just move her along with the rest of us.

I have also come to like this seemingly innate sense that my body has that isn’t troubled at all by the demands of the modern world. It seems to stubbornly refuse to be modernized and acclimated to the 21st century. My body is still on caveman time. Get up and work when it is light, take comfort and safety in the dark. That is just how it is for me. And I kinda like that despite all the trappings of the modern world, my nervous system is still connected to the ancient primeval. Makes me feel like I have not completely lost my way…

So Fall tired is ok. It is here and I am battling my alarm for an hour every morning now and will do this for probably the whole month of September. Except that I won’t. This year I am going to just reset my alarm for 5 am and call it good. I do not need to fight this anymore. I just need more rest now and that is just going to be ok. Because I have evolved into a person who doesn’t have to fight herself at every single turn. I am a person who can now look at her needs and just acknowledge them, let them be and support them. That is what I have gained in the last year. An ability to see what I need and then give it to myself. So I can fall into the tired and just allow instead of fighting myself every damn day. Sometimes progress looks and feels like progress and sometimes, it looks a lot like sleeping in.