Dark-Eyed Monday

Including today, which is, of course, Monday, the 17th, I had a productive weekend. Writing, exercise, catching up on sleep, learning about the one and only Dawson Church and benefiting from a guided meditation he did with the host of YouTube's "Inspire Nation". I had a lovely dinner with my parents and saw, on the counter, Dad's Valentine's gifts for Mom, which involved a card of which I swear I got a birthday version either in '19 or '18 (That gave me pause, though I blame card companies, not my father). 
Because you were dying to know, yes, my mother still makes tasty chili.
And I finally started watching "AJ & the Queen" on Netflix. 
Younger me always appreciated Rupaul Charles, but as an adult currently undergoing a transformation that involves remembering who I really am, meditating, etc., I'm in a phase of looking up all of these interviews with him, hungry for the parts where he says such inspiring things, putting out into the public the fact that in a sense, this world and its expectations and pressures are an illusion, muthah F, so don't pay it too much mind.



This weekend had also involved a lot of reflection and self-discovery work, which ate up more energy than I had naïvely expected.

I had the day off from work and spent a good chunk of it running errands. Partway through, I happened to look at myself in the mirror, planning to inspect my makeup. I think I felt something near my eye and wanted to be sure, but what held my attention was that -
holy crap -
I did not look good. I mean, I'm pretty and all, but damn, my foundation was doin' nothing to hide these half moons that, at least in the afternoon light comin' through my car window, looked a lot darker than I expected to see after sleeping in today until *gulp* 10:30. I had let myself sleep because upon waking to my alarm two and a half hours earlier, my limbs had felt like lead and I just...didn't feel lazy but not well, not rested. All afternoon, I had felt tired, even after a big cup of espresso, and here was this image. My surprise and concern came about not just because I slept in, but because I had gone to sleep around midnight the night before, which is what I've thought of as a good time - not early, not late - and I had slept until 9/9:30 Sunday. Saturday I had taken an hour nap after only two or three hours' sleep due to my having the occasional, typical night of keeping myself with guilt and anger or past wrongs.
I'm assuming now that the inner work these past four days took more of a stressful toll than I realized. Ugh. Worth it, but ugh. Must fix and recover.

If you decide to dig in to work on yourself, please do what I'm going to master, which is balancing it with the kind of self-care that means de-stressing and proper sleep. We must strive to be good roommates and excellent soulmates to ourselves. 
*gazes into the mirror* Now go to bed, Racoon Eyes.