Psyching myself out

Sleep, why is this so hard for us? I feel the difference when you behave yourself. I feel great when you visit and stay a while. I've read the books about how vital you are to my well-being. And yet, you make me wait. Sigh...

It seems like it's always something, and forgive me please if you are weary about hearing of my sleep troubles. On a very important up side, I've got my pillows rearranged so my lower back pain during the day seems to be almost gone. That's a pretty small change for a big return and I wouldn't have figured it out if I hadn't slept on another bed recently. Thankful for that. 

But I find that, like a lot of people, the things I worry about can keep me up, even if I'm not actively thinking about them. Hunting down these anxieties and telling them to take a hike takes work!! Dammit. In the haze of almost-sleep I'm often just in the middle area between being able to think and being able to not, so it's hard to make conscious decisions about things. 

Last night I was tossing and turning and reached for my phone to browse around because I was awake enough to do it. In my Facebook feed I saw the words "Learned Optimism". It set off a useful little train of thought that ended up with me saying to myself, "I choose to believe that everything is going to work out for the best."

Is anything really wrong? No, just the usual uncertainty of being in a contract position. On most days lately, I feel OK with that because a two-year federal budget has been passed that (I think) keeps funding pretty level with where it is now.

I'm also trying new stuff at work. It has me doing a lot of reading about what other people have done, and I get to collaborate with some co-workers. Those are two really good things about it. But it's stuff I haven't done before, although I'm really interested in it, and that uncertainty bugs me a bit sometimes. 

It bothers me a bit that even though the above work related things have a measure of uncertainty to them, it's really small potatoes. It should be pretty easy to chalk it up to how life works. I feel this is a consequence of living alone - the ideas need to roll around in my head for a lot longer than they would if they bounced off another person. I'm not complaining, but it's good to realize that I sometimes start to loop about this stuff, and I'm the one that has to step in and say "enough!". 

Took the picture above at the dog park yesterday. I just liked the stack of clouds and the lighting on them was nice.