I am up early and wild-eyed, because I woke up needing to pee at 3:30 a.m., and then I lay awake going over to-do lists that were not at all doable at 3:30 a.m., thinking that I MUST sleep but that it was looking like I might not be able to—and then I DID drift off!!! …just before Paul’s alarm, which he had forgotten to shut off when he woke up before it went off, went off at 4:45. So I am up for the day, and not best pleased.
This alarm-clock thing has been happening jusssst often enough to make me want to throw his alarm clock against a wall, or perhaps against him, but not QUITE often enough to make a big deal about it. Like, it’s been happening about once every two weeks, and it’s been happening like this for maybe six months now—but after decades of not being an issue, so it’s a little perplexing. This morning I did make a little bit of a big deal about it, because this week (twin high school graduation and many, many end-of-year activities/ceremonies; twin 18th birthdays with all the doubled shopping and wrapping and cake-baking and special-dinner-making; twin college-prep stuff; many other miscellaneous things such as cats having vet appointments and one of Elizabeth’s art pieces needing to be picked up an hour away and Henry mentioning that one of the lenses keeps popping out of his glasses) is about as busy for me as the busiest pre-Christmas week, and I have SO much to do, and there are so many uncertainties (will it rain, which will absolutely bork graduation plans? will I be able to find the ingredient two separate grocery stores were out of?) and I have been counting on good sleep in order to cope with all of these tasks as well as to cope unshriekingly with the freshly-tilled awareness of how uneven the workload is in these sorts of busy times, and how after 25 years I can apparently like it or lump it. And then his alarm. Well.
I have been discovering once again how getting even the lowest-priority items off the to-do list can make a marked difference in my despair levels. Yesterday I put a little air in the car tire that periodically needs a little air, and also I filled the gas tank even though it still had just over a quarter tank, and even getting those two little things accomplished was enough to make me feel like I could cope at a higher level than before with the things that were more essential to get done, such as finding a Spotify gift card.
I also used the adrenaline momentum of coming home from So!! Many!! Errands!! to make a phone call: we keep getting medical bills for Edward’s routine medication infusions that are multiple hundreds of dollars rather than our usual $20 copay; and normally the hospital Edward goes to is impressively brisk and efficient at handling all these stressful little glitches behind the scenes without us having to do anything about it (which I regularly notice and feel grateful for, because of how often I have to leap and re-leap through hoops to get things covered for other medical providers); but this time we’re starting to get letters with deadlines after which they will send it to collections, so this time I called. I got someone very nice, who could not help at all. I honestly was not sure why they were answering the phone, when they could not tell me ANYTHING or do ANYTHING about ANYTHING. But they were very NICE, and they DID “send it to code review” and assured me that in the meantime I did not have to worry about paying it. They said that in their experience, almost every situation is completely resolved by code review. My guess is that the reason this is the only thing the person on the phone knows how to do is that someone EXTREMELY COMPETENT normally keeps these issues from getting to this point; very likely that same person is in charge of code-reviewing.
Anyway it felt nice to have made that call, which has been hovering over me. Why do I put off things that MUST be done? Am I trying to maximize the amount of time I spend being unhappy and stressed about them? (Though in this particular case I feel I have an excuse, since USUALLY my procrastination is rewarded. But I mean OVERALL.)
Ugh. That’s a lot and I am very aware how impossibly worse everything feels when you haven’t slept well.
Oh, the alarm thing would make me crazy! And with all that you have going on, it would be hard to find a calm time to sit down and ask him what might be going on, why this is happening when it never used to, and brainstorm ideas to help him get his shit together, ahem. I do wish you all the best getting through!
Oh god Swistle, I totally get this and also feel much less alone. Your busyness level sounds insane. I am in a very busy time right now, and it’s very stressful, AND a medical issue that’s pretty important just popped up. We are moving to a different province next month, so it feels like EVERYTHING is on a time constraint, because it IS. Yesterday I made a ton of little phone calls and got a couple of bigger things done, and now I feel like I CAN do this and I CAN handle it all. It was getting those multiple tiny things off the list, and now I can figure out the bigger ones. So, I hear you, I am with you, and also? I spent several hours awake the other night only to fall asleep probably 20 minutes before my own alarm, and that is blergh.
OMG. on making that call. A local health care provider treated me last MAY. I got a bill, paid it. Got another one, paid it (while thinking I was never using them again bc I have insurance and also paid $700+ for a dog bite, my dog long story, I got a band aid and a tetanus shot) GOT A THIRD BILL. Called them (it’s now September) and they were like, “oh, no, you have a $350 credit, we will refund you. It may take a little while.
Son was seen in November. Got a bill for $150 (January). No sign of my refund. Called. I’m not paying you, you owe me money. Got another bill. (March) Called. Same. (There’s NEVER a supervisor available and the phone person literally can’t do anything). Got another bill (April). Emailed, no response. Guess what? ANOTHER bill (May) called, still no supervisor but person called back, said it was put through. Said 3 weeks.
Ahem. Three weeks was Tuesday. Guess what I don’t have?
Called again and fully Karened it. Guess who got a call back from a supervisor FOR THE FIRST TIME?!?!? Who swore she would call me on Friday after she signed the check AND WHY DO I HAVE TO BE A JERK TO GET ANYTHING DONE? This is my 5th phone call. It’s been a year since I was seen. Literally NOTHING. Until I frazzled the woman on the other end of the phone. Which I mentioned. I was like it’s great you’re making promises but IT’S BEEN A YEAR OF PHONE CALLS FOR WHICH I DO NOT GET PAID. YOU are getting PAID.
Sigh.
I am pointedly not thinking about ALL the things (this included) I organize daily. While homeschooling two children and doing ALL the things.
I hope your calls are so much less of an ordeal than mine have been.
I once had a series of insurance billing snafus, and when I talked to the person at the insurer who fixed everything/told me how to fix it, he said, “Well, if they can only be good at one thing, you want it to be the healthcare rather than the billing.”
OK, but there’s no reason they can’t be good at both, especially given that the people providing the healthcare are not the same ones doing the administrating.
Right?!?!
YES. And also, why do offices of all kinds these days just assume the billing will be screwed up and YOU (not THEM) have endless amounts of time to fix it? Medical offices take errors in billing so causally, like they expect it will go wrong the first few times. Then, the answer is always that you should call someone else (who is only available at certain days and times, and not even really those) to fix it. NO. I called once to report the problem. THIS IS YOUR OFFICE. NOW YOU FIX IT. THAT IS LITERALLY YOUR JOB.
Sigh. I feel that Karens are misjudged a lot (this feeling is totally separate from the fact that it happens to be my name, of course). They wouldn’t be making a scene to the manager if someone had done the job right in the first place or tried to fix it the first time. It’s not about mixing up stupid Starbucks orders. The scenes are usually about life and death medical treatment. Why wouldn’t you want to get that right?!?!
” but IT’S BEEN A YEAR OF PHONE CALLS FOR WHICH I DO NOT GET PAID. YOU are getting PAID.”
This. So. Much. This. I spent several weeks and I don’t know how many phone calls playing phone tag with a vendor for a healthcare item. They would call, leave a message to call them back, then immediately send an email saying they couldn’t get in touch with me and to call them at this number. I call and get voice mail. After the 6th/7th time, I finally asked on the voicemail message I left, if we could possibly do this through email. Got another forking voicemail (from someone new!) saying to call back and then of course the email. At that point, I said no. I replied to the email saying I was done and that I don’t have a job that pays me to sit at a desk and answer phones and clearly calling them back wasn’t working either.
Fortunately it’s an item that can be procured through other means.
OMG! Not to mention there are 50000 phone scams out there, so who answers the phone? Not me.
That’s so frustrating!! Here’s mine: in November 2020 I had a root canal at a emergency dentist. My insurance paid some. I paid $900. Everything is good. I went back a year and a half later for a tooth infection, every thing is still cool. I went back a month ago and I’m told I owe $1500 on the original root canal b/c their system is garbage and sometimes forgets to charge you.
WHAT?!?!?!? How?
I blame it on computers, honestly, when there’s a glitch in the matrix and no one on top of it to find it. Like my request just SITS there. Forever. No one is checking the call logs or notes. Likely no one knows how to upload that report or whatever it is. And it’s nearly impossible to move a thing OUT of there.
And also how did NO ONE notice $1500?!?!? That’s some money right there. Are they at least being nice about it?
SEPARATE BEDROOMS
This is our solution :)
Also, could he just use a phone alarm instead of an alarm clock? Assuming he takes the phone with him as he starts his day.
Brilliant!
Biggest advantage of kids leaving for college: When I can’t take the snoring and thrashing, I leave. It seems to hurt his feelings. Whatevs, my dude.
100% this. I only sleep in “our” room when we have company over occupying the spare room where the wee dog and I blissfully curl up in our lovely nest every non-company night. Worst part of family vacation is having to share a room with people every night.
WHY is it always 3:00 am??
This all sounds extremely stressful and busy and I too would be at the alarm-clock-throwing stage. Very glad that you are making progress on the to-do list. And happy birthday and graduation to the twins!!!
The paragraph about doing/taking care of ALL.THE.THINGS. I feel this in my bones.
If I died tomorrow, this household would descend into chaos within a couple of days. If he died tomorrow, I would need to hire a lawn service.
I have a child leaving for college in August that ALWAYS forgets to turn off her alarm if she gets up before it. I’m sure her roommate will love her. I know it is because of her ADHD, but maybe new roommate will be able to help her with a coping mechanism I have not yet found to remedy this quirk.
Dude. I lived with two different people who would snooze forever, finally not hit snooze and also not get up. Fast forward to them: why didn’t you wake me up? Me: I did. And why would that work where your 15 alarms failed?
Anyway, they’re both responsible adults with jobs and stuff now. I should ask how they are at getting out of bed these days. One has children, so that probably helps immensely as children who want you UP do not accept defeat as easily as random roommates.
I can only imagine the extreme levels of stress/anxiety you are facing with all of this on your plate! That alarm thing on top of all of it? That would make me murderous.
I would 100% smash the alarm clock and leave the pieces on his side of the bed. He should use the alarm on his phone or watch so it leaves the room with him. Many years ago my father had an alarm that would go off at random times and he couldn’t hear it without his hearing aids in so my mother finally just took a hammer to it. Good sleep is non-negotiable!
I wake up a couple of hours earlier than my husband. Didn’t want him to have to wake up when I do, so I use a sunrise alarm clock. It gradually goes from dim to full light over a half hour and then plays bird song that gets increasingly louder over 5 minutes.
I wake up when the alarm has been turning on the light for ~5 minutes. Had 1 occasion where I woke up before it and forgot to turn it off; he didn’t wake up until the birds were blaring (so he got an extra 35 minutes of sleep).
Either that or separate bedrooms would be my suggestion
Sadly, I suspect “like it” is not really a viable option, leaving only “lump it”.
There are wearable wristwatch-style alarms that buzz. In theory they wake only one person. My other half magically stopped leaving his alarms on unnecessarily so we didn’t buy one, but we got 3 kids and a puppy that get us both up early anyway.
It is the worst when you need sleep and just can’t. Good luck with ALL THE STUFF! And big congrats on the twin’s graduations!