Silence on my part is usually an indicator that life is being difficult and I feel as if no one would really want to visit the dark side of my life. Funny, isn't it? Just the time I most wish to write and I avoid the keyboard with one specious excuse after another.

A strange occurrence might be a good place to start.

Two weeks ago, I put my rather long hair into two pony tails and cut it off. It was a rather dramatic moment, more befitting of the outlier heroine in one of the young adult fantasy novels I used in my dissertation study than a middle aged, frumpy homebody.

Okay, 37 is not middle aged (though I oft feel that way with between arthritis stiffness, MS pain, and asthmatic difficulty breathing). And, perhaps I am not as frumpy as I think I am. But I am a homebody.

I do wonder, however, if I were not so incredibly fatigued working full time with three chronic diseases, would I be more of a social butterfly?

Still, I had been wanting a change. I had been wanting something to mark that which has been changing inside. I wished to wear my hair completely down, but when I did, people at work keep making remarks. If it was not in a bun, then I pulled it back in a barrette, like a twelve-year-old school girl (or at least one from when I was in school). Doing so did nothing for my futile attempts to look my age in hopes of being treated as my age. [I am tired of being treated like a girl, carded on the rare occasions I order a drink, and generally patted on the head and told I will understand when I am older.] So I cut off the one part of me that actually made me feel feminine, attractive. It was a bold and frightening moment.

The weird part? Ever since then, I have been mainly sleeping through the night. For over ten years, I have only been able to sleep a couple of hours before waking. Each night was an endless cycle of going to sleep. Waking. Trying to get back to sleep. Waking. The morning would arrive, and I would feel only a hair more rested than the night before. I lived for the weekends where I could sleep later. For some strange reason, I could sleep from about 7-12 without waking.

I cut off my hair and find myself sleeping at least 6 and 1/2 hours straight. Let me tell you, it is a strange sensation to wake having passed the night in sleep. I expect it to only be 2 AM and it is already 7:30.

This week, I have hardly been sleeping at all, but that is because I am rattled by a recent event. When (hopefully not if) I can find balance again and close my eyes in peace and not fear, will the phenomenon continue?

Note:

I sent my hair to Locks of Love. If you do not have hair hanging below your waist that you recently chopped off in an attempt to satisfy some inner desire for change, perhaps you have some spare change to donate!