I Got No Rhythm

I heard recently that seventy is the new thirty, which, according to my calculations, puts me at about thirteen. Frankly, I'd rather be thirty, and I am hoping my formula is a bit overly simplistic. Numbers have always confused me, particularly when it comes to seasonal time changes. I usually have to sit down with a pencil in one hand and my head in the other to figure out whether the bump forward or backward is good news.

Like everything, it depends. When my children were babies, I lived for the day the clock would spring forward, turning five a.m. into six. Though morning would arrive faster that Sunday, the new wake up time sounded far more palatable. It never occurred to me that human circadian rhythms adjust almost instantaneously to things called zeitgebers, environmental cues such as, say, daylight, which couldn't give less of a shit about what time it says on my adjustable digital clock. And so, within a day or two, wake up time for the babies would still be five, even though I still considered that to be four.

As the kids got older and they would sleep until they were physically dragged from between the sheets, I looked forward to the Saturday night in the fall when the clocks would "fall" back, giving me an extra hour of sleep. Again, back in those days, I was not an insomniac and did not spend my time in the wee hours scanning Wikipedia for if not useless then entirely forgettable information about circadian rhythms and things called zeitgebers, so it never occurred to me that the extra hour of sleep would negate itself very quickly.

These days, between circadian rhythms (which I appear not to have) and bouncing hormones and the competing side effects of pills for anxiety and leg twitches and bloating and muscle aches and, yes, sleeplessness, time changes throw me off completely. Yesterday and today, with four thirty abruptly becoming the new five thirty, I woke for the day at three, which is the old two. Four thirty, which is the old three thirty, is suddenly looking awfully good. I'm sure it will all work itself out, hopefully before the autumnal time change rolls around to once again wreak havoc with my already addled system.

Life is confusing. I should have felt joy, the other day, when my friend's first grandchild was born. Joy for the parents, joy for the grandparents and surviving great-grandparents. Joy for the baby because, no matter how shitty things can seem sometimes, life is a gift. But my friend is not here for the arrival of her first grandchild. In the six years she's been gone, she's missed lots of milestones, but this one, for me, stings the most. Waking up at three which is the old two when I should have woken at five thirty which is the old wake up time of four thirty is baffling enough. My friend's absence for the birth of her oldest daughter's son is beyond comprehension.

As is the case with everything, I suppose, the new abnormal will become the new normal and life will go on as it always does. The new baby will have his own circadian rhythms for a while which, coincidentally, seem to have nothing to do with zeitgebers of any sort, certainly have nothing to do with his parents' need for a bit of rest. Sleeplessness will become their new normal; they will quickly forget what life was like when the clock actually meant something.

Stranger things have happened and they keep happening, and it's not even just about the numbers. Walk into any women's clothing store and you'll see that not only is seventy the new thirty but horizontal stripes are the new black. Really. Sleep cycles and untimely death I can understand, but horizontal stripes, well, that's a hard pill to swallow. Especially with all the crap I'm already taking. Side effects are bad enough, but widened love handles?

Give me a two o'clock wake up call any day. Or at least a good old fashioned zeitgeber to make it all go away.