really close to retarded...

I've been getting 4-5 hours of sleep a night for about eight weeks now. I've come to realize I have been literally rationing my brainpower. No blog reading. I might open one, but I can't seem to put forth the energy to pleasure-read.

I go to work now at the hairy crack of dawn and start yucketing through my email. Change this. Add that. Update this. Post this. Blah, boring, blah. I do it. I return my mail. I check my calendar. During my fieldwork (internship) hours, I have to be on, attentive, taking therapy notes, deliberating, engaging, thinking on my feet, figuring out how I am going to convince them I'm not an idiot. Then I go back to work and stay into the evening--somewhere between 6:30 and 8:30 on the days I put in field hours. We're cleaning out the house from top to bottom so that and a little bit of painting is the rest of my free time.

It would probably be easier if I wasn't a walking zombie. But I can't sleep. I haven't been able to sleep since Daddy died. Now that I have to get up so early, I sleep even less. I go to bed between 11pm and midnight, fall asleep in about an hour; then I'm awake again somewhere between 3-4 am; then back to sleep after a while and wake up about 5:45; then the alarm goes off at 5:50...going to bed earlier doesn't help much. I am a natural night owl and my body won't shut down early.

Why am I telling you all this? Because I'm getting really close to retarded. Sometimes I stare at my computer and wonder how much time has passed. I wonder if the rest of the office is mad at me because my hours have become irregular. I wonder if the therapists who have met me so far like me. I wonder why I care so much about either of those issues. I wonder if when it's my turn to lead a therapy group that I can even stay awake and coherent. I wonder when I will stop typing nonsense and go back to staring into space...whatever.