A Day in the life of cycles

I woke up this morning at 3:00 am. I don't know why. My body felt totally awake. I hate that, well, I hate when that happens in the middle of the night. I laid awake for over 2 and a half hours. That's just crazy. Something was defintely wacky with my circadian sleep cycle.

I was able to go back to sleep somewhere between 5:30 am and 6:00 am and slept until about 9 am. Then I got up and went into my typical sabbatical morning routine: make some coffee, watch some Ellen, perhaps the View, all while working on my computer until lunch. Lunch for me used to be around noon, but since going on sabbatical I find that I get too involved in my computer work and end up trying to just finish up one more item before having lunch. The next thing I know it's 1:30 going on 2:00. That's what happened today.

For many years I didn't eat very well. Overall, I'm much better than I used to be but there are times when I still crave those bad-for you foods. I've noted there is a greater tendency for this to happen at one particular time of the month, a time that coincides with another cycle of which I will not go into any more detail here. Let me just say today was case in point for my overlapping theory--after choosing a decent lunch I followed it right up with a boat load of chips and dip. Argh!! Between the chips and not having exercised since last Wednesday, I knew I had to get out today.

So I donned my running gear and started out the door. Before I could get into my cycle of songs on the alphabetized playlist I heard music coming from down the street. As I turned towards the alley, I noted a several vehicles parked outside the nearby church. A silver hearse indicated a funeral was taking place there. Having solved the mystery, I took a moment of silence to pay my respects to the stranger for whom everyone was gathered. Then I moved past the church and began my usual running route.

Half a mile into my running circle a beautiful maple caught my eye. The colors were so vivid and bright I couldn't help but be captivated. I decided that I would have to come back with my camera and I could blog about the seasons and how it correlates to the cyle of life and death. But as I continued on my run more and more cycles came to mind. And I thought, today is all about cycles.

My usual morning routine was supplemented today with trips up and down the stairs trying to complete 4 loads of laundry. Laundry involves a few different cycles. First there's the washing machine cycle. Second you have the drying cycle. But the whole issue of doing laundry is a never ending cycle too. As a friend once noted, you can never be completely caught up unless you do your laundry naked. Which I don't.

To top it all off, when I got back from running I had to take my bike out in order to determine how far I had run. Since I hadn't run as far as I have been lately, I decided to continue my ride and add some more miles to my workout. So here I was cycling, thinking about cycles in my life. Today seemed to be the day many of those cycles were converging. And that's my reality for today.


R: 3.1 miles 27 minutes W: 2.5 miles B: 11:35 1 Hr 5 min