Lack of sleep...pandermoanium and chaos...

Hi Steve,

How are you doing?  I hope you've had a good week.  Mine, well, let's just say I'm glad it's almost over.

I got my first 7-day sleep report today, from the Lark.  Pete got this thing for our iPhone called the Lark, which keeps track of your sleep habits, and from the look of it, I'm pretty much a walking zombie.  No WONDER I'm a mess.  Yeah, see, I tend to wake up an average of 12 times per night.  I only get about 6 hours of sleep per night.  It takes me sometimes over an hour to fall asleep.  Basically, I am sleep deprived.

Right after our wedding, for example, when we flew to San Francisco for our honeymoon, I hit the pillow in that hotel and was OUT for nearly 24 hours STRAIGHT.  I slept in a recliner CHAIR for over a year, because of the pain in my back.  Didn't sleep very well then either.  This has probably been going on for several years....maybe since 9/11 even.  I know for a FACT that I did not sleep for 36-48 hours afterwards, all I could do was sit glued to the t.v., and cry.  I didn't eat, I didn't sleep, I didn't bathe, I was a zombie.  I was in shock I think.

So, there may have been times on this blog when you have thought, "Wow, she's a loon," or "geez what a moron," or "damn that chick is whack."  Well, before you pass judgment on the writings of a sleep deprived woman, just remember that I am a caregiver, I am stressed out all the time, and I'm friendless.  On top of that, I can't seem to get enough sleep, and I don't really know what to do about it.

I do have FRIENDS, don't get me wrong, but they all live either in Michigan or DC, so HERE in Pittsburgh, I don't really have any.  Sure, Pete has lots of friends, and I tag along with him and them on occasion, but I don't really KNOW them, and they aren't really MY friends.  So, I have nobody really to talk to other than my mom, and some days I want someone ELSE to talk to, so I made up this blog to you.  I figure it's harmless, it won't ever be READ by you anyway, so why not just sit and write everything in my head to the wind and the cosmos, and try to calm myself and relax?

Anyway, I'm in the midst of painting our master bedroom...I now have tiny white speckles all over my arms....painting the ceiling really sucks.  Why do I do this to myself???!  I want our room to be a nice RETREAT, I guess, somewhere peaceful that I can go, somewhere tranquil and soothing, especially during bad weeks like this one.  But it's a royal pain in the patoot to paint a ceiling.

I guess I'd better get back to it though.

I had a very lengthy and confusing conversation with Pete until nearly 3 a.m., regarding God.  Now, you should know that Pete studied religion and the Bible a LOT in his college years, and he was a group leader for the church for a long time too.  So, he has some knowledge of this particular issue.  More than I ever will.  I asked Pete, "Did God create death?"  His answer, "Well, He created LIFE, and the opposite of that is DEATH, but he didn't CREATE death...." which totally confused the shit outta me.  "How can God create LIFE that also seems to come along with DEATH, without actually creating DEATH too??" "Well, how would you know what life WAS, if you had nothing to compare it to? How would you know what GOOD was, without EVIL?  How would you know what LIGHT was, without the DARK?" ......um.....yeah......ok....but it still sounds like God created death to me.

And if God created DEATH, then who the hell is HE to say who can live, and who can die?  Just because he's this omnipotent being, where does he get off taking away GOOD people like my friend Mike, and leaving behind evil people like the leader of Iran????  What kind of God would do that???  And if man is made in God's image, why then do WE have to die, but HE DOESN'T???  I thought maybe that had something to do with Adam and Eve, eating an apple, and now they have to die and have menstruation and stuff, but Pete said that story is full of crap.  Okay, but that's GENESIS, right?? That is the very FIRST story every kid is taught in pretty much every church everywhere.  Isn't it??  He quoted things from the New Testament, but of course, my leanings towards Judaism really rely more on the OLD testament, so I have some bones to pick about the changes that were made in the New one.

It was quite a strange conversation.  It led us to all sorts of questions that I have had for decades, and never got any satisfactory answers to from anybody.  I stumped Pete quite a few times, actually.  When I was a kid, for example, I asked the question, "Why can girls in a Catholic church wear pants, but in my Baptist church, they aren't supposed to?  Does God REALLY care what we WEAR?"  The answer I received was, "Sometimes you just have to have faith, and do what you're told."  I thought about that, and soon rejected that as a big fat load of BS.  So I have always had a big problem with the man-made BS rules of religion.

Anyway, well, I don't have the answers, and neither did Pete really, but we had quite a conversation.  If he tried to answer one aspect of my question, it would then lead me to ask ANOTHER question that contradicted his answer, and so on....got him all flustered.  I like doing that to people who are religious zealots sometimes, just to mess with their heads.  I would not call myself an Atheist, however, my question to Pete was about the soul, the body and the spirit, and if they don't go to a "Heaven," (he said that Heaven may not actually BE where dead people go, they lie in WAIT for the Judgment day)...then what's all this shit about doing good deeds to get into heaven, and watch out for the devil, he'll take you to hell, and "he/she is watching over you from Heaven," and all THAT bullshit??

Maybe I'm like the 10 year old kid who finally figures out that Santa isn't real.  I don't know.

All I do know is, religion sucks.  It makes no sense, it doesn't have consistency, and it's a lot of man-made rules and made-up stories and crap that is fed to people to keep them living in fear so that they can be controlled easier.  That's pretty much what I figured out about religion, when I was young.  Same goes for politicians, they like to keep people living in fear, (like Fox News), in order to keep you glued to that t.v., to keep their ratings going up, to keep the money coming in, and all it is is a bunch of smoke and mirror bullshit that is exaggerated, or completely made up, or taken out of context.

Life is PAN-DER-MOAN-IUM....(spelling and pun intended).  Churches pander their BS to the masses, it makes the people moan in fear, and that pretty much sums up life in general.

Ah well, like I said, you may disagree with my thoughts and feelings, I don't know if I'm right or wrong about any of it, I'm just tossing out my thoughts and feelings to the wind, just for the hell of it.  I am a sleep deprived caregiver with diabetes, and high blood pressure, who doesn't handle stress very well.  So cut me some slack, Jack, and give me a break.

I love ya Stephen.  Thanks for listening to my ramblings.  All this death around me all the time...you'd THINK working at the Holocaust Museum for 6 years would have gotten me USED TO IT by now, but when it hits close to home like this, it still just throws me into chaos.

Love, Rebecca