Jungle oasis (http://www.matteworld.com/film/film_archives/mummy2.html)

First – to regular and long-time readers, an apology.

It’s now been over three months since I last posted here. Don’t worry – nothing major happened to me. The only things that did happen were busyness elsewhere (some good, some not so good), inertia and (especially) ongoing meh.

As well, initially I had been waiting for life events to influence the outcome of a few small series I had been planning to write. That outcome took longer than expected to arrive – life always happens when you make plans – but even after it did, the things I mentioned in the paragraph above didn’t make me feel like writing.

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Second – recently I had finally planned to start on those series, but then an unexpected yet very welcome experience has prompted me to write this post instead.

Next time, I may finally start those series. We’ll see.

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A couple of weeks ago, I enjoyed reading some online articles about Barack Obama’s late-night routine (like this one).

I enjoyed those articles because like Obama I’m a “night guy”, and reading them took me back to my last full-time job when, especially during its last four years when I worked from home, I preferred completing some of my work hours at night (and sometimes very late).

Those articles also resonated because of my work situation since that full-time job was made redundant early last year. Since then I’ve worked on a few short-term contracts, which meant getting back into the mindset and routine of 9-to-5 hours in offices. That hasn’t been all bad, but many mornings (especially after many nights of unsatisfying sleep) I have missed no longer having the luxury of getting up at around 9am, throwing on just a pair of shorts and being able to start work less than 10 minutes later.

There is always hope, though, that I may be able to work like that again.

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Monday, 18 July 2016.

Another work day was over, and I decided to revisit a new favourite restaurant for dinner.

So I headed down to Braza Darling Harbour and once again I enjoyed their all-you-can-eat Brazilian churrasco.

Yet, when I got home afterwards, something was very different.

My usual bedtime is between 12am-1am – but tonight the time wasn’t even 10pm, and I was exhausted.

I hadn’t eaten more than I usually did at Braza…but I think the last few weeks had finally caught with me.

I hadn’t been sleeping well – but most surprising (and troubling of all), the weekend just past had been the worst. It was the first weekend in about a month where I didn’t need to be somewhere by a certain time, so Friday and Saturday nights I’d given myself the luxury of staying in bed for up to eight hours…but despite that, I had spent both Saturday and Sunday feeling tired all day. It had well and truly sucked.

And now I wanted to go to bed long before my usual bedtime, and at first that sucked as well…

…but then I decided to embrace it.

Why not go to bed now? Okay, I may wake up again a few hours later – but even if I do, relax and wait until I go to sleep again.

Or maybe – just maybe – I may even sleep solidly for more than a few hours.

Wouldn’t that be wonderful?

So I brushed my teeth, made a last pit-stop and shortly before 10:30pm went to bed.

I fell asleep pretty quickly.

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When I awoke, the first thing I did was glance over at my main window.

There was no dawn light at all coming through the blinds.

Great! It was still most likely very early Tuesday morning, so I relaxed.

Next, I decided to read with the hope that eventually I would fall asleep again.

Recently, I’d been enjoying Keith Foskett’s books about thru-hiking the Camino de Santiago, the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail. As well as being welcome respites from recent life, Foskett’s adventures had got me thinking again about perhaps one day thru-hiking one of those trails myself. I was leaning towards the Camino de Santiago, so recently I had also gotten a copy of Suzanne Ball’s Follow The Yellow Arrows about her Camino experience.

So I powered on the Kindle, read Follow The Yellow Arrows and liked it a lot – but it’s a very short book, and I quickly finished it and found myself not ready to go back to sleep yet.

For a moment I debated whether to lie there and try going back to sleep, or get up for a short while. I decided to get up, as I’m usually no good at lying there trying to go to sleep…

…but for the first time since…I couldn’t remember, I felt refreshed and keen to get up.

I looked at the time on my iPhone. It was 3:51am.

I already been awake for perhaps at least half an hour, so I had slept barely five hours.

But I felt wonderful.

Again, I hadn’t felt this way after sleep for a long time.

I got up feeling very happy.

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For the next hour-and-a-half or so, until just after 5:30am, I sat at my desk and felt very mellow.

I did a little gaming, I did a little surfing, and I read some more – including this great article about the joys of train-travel, which added to my mellowness.

Finally, just after 5:30am I started to feel a little tired, and so I went back to bed…albeit a little reluctantly, as I’d very much enjoyed waking up feeling wonderful and having some relaxing middle-of-the-night time to myself.

It took a while to get back to sleep, however, and until 7:30am or so when I reluctantly got back up it was unsettled sleep.

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It’s now been almost a week since that visit to the night oasis, and ever since I’ve remembered it very fondly.

I’m not sure when I’ll get to visit again – but in a few days’ time I’ll be travelling to Canberra Brick Expo 2016..

I can’t wait – partly because of Brick Expo; partly because I’ll be in Canberra again; and partly because of five nights relaxing at a hotel, which promises several possible opportunities to return to the oasis.

Until next time, stay well and take care 🙂