pb&j

day 9: 100 days

I have just devoured two pieces of peanut butter and jelly toast, with milk — in bed.

I ate the toast on a napkin — I’m not an animal — but the milk was almost gone, so I tucked the carton under my arm and brought it down to sit on the nightstand where I drank it straight, no glass, like a badass.

Both these items you could say were snuck…sneaked…snooken…downstairs before my oldest daughter could finish her shower and catch me in the act. I didn’t need any witnesses to this level of desperation…and stickiness.

I’m just so tired, you see. So so tired. From the weekend. Camping for two nights should not make you feel tired for half the week, but it has, and it is still making me so very exhausted. It’s embarrassing. It’s making me feel aged, or like I must have forgotten to take a supplement — so of course, in times like these, we must turn towards carbohydrates.

This is all unusual for me; It’s been about eleven years since I’ve eaten a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in bed. It used to be my middle-of-the-night, go-to snack of choice when our oldest daughter was born. Every night around 1 am, I would reward my ability to stay upright and breastfeed while semi-catatonic by eating one in my kitchen, standing with my baby wrapped on my chest, sometimes using my finger to wipe drips of peanut butter from her head.. It was all I ever craved during the night. There was just something about a PB&J that left me satiated and, most importantly, calm — after having one, I knew I could go on for another few hours. I could make it til morning if I had to.

And I suppose that’s why I wanted one tonight. I knew as soon as I got home, I would need a few more hours of awakeness. This is important if you’re looking for a way to write words, at night, which I am. I’ve been stuck in this sad loop all week: Because of the camping sleep deprivation, I am too tired to wake up early. So I give writing at night a go, but then it doesn’t work so well because (insert card carrying morning person) I’m not a night person (not even an afternoon person really) and it takes a looong time to get anything down, so then I stay awake way longer than is helpful and then — I can’t wake up…and so forth and so on.

I’ve tried everything to get back on track. I napped today. That was weird. Napping in the middle of the day on a Tuesday? But I had to try. I drank a cup of coffee this morning, even though I gave up coffee earlier this year, and all of this was just an epilogue to the three Fig Newtons I consumed, a bit frantically, in order to inject enough alertness to drive across town to pick up my kiddo. Again, times like these call for judgment-free carbohydrates.

And so here I am. I have written some words, and that feels like a win. Perhaps if we are lucky, we will return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow. The morning show is the better show. But I just turned on my heating pad and pulled my latest Abigail Thomas book a little closer. And honestly, if I’m going to stay up and read, I may have to make another sandwich.

I ate the sandwich before I could take a picture - here is the empty carton of milk

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This is Day 9 of my 100-day essayette adventure.

Thank you for being here, for subscribing, and for reading.

Please excuse any grammatical errors over the next few months.

100 days of writing means I write, and I let go, and then…I do it all over again — all while caring for two small humans, a small nervous white dog, and a plethora of cats.

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I hope you find something true today.