My Darth Vader Impression

Good news - I survived my second sleep study, and I actually slept!  (The exclamation point belongs to the Ambien that made sleep possible).  I came home with a new toy, a CPAP machine.  Toy, box of shame, whatever.

I am ashamed, but I'm ignoring it.  If this godawful mask and humiliating headgear are going to help me have more energy, I'm embracing it.  If anyone wants to judge me, I'm ignoring that, too.  I'm going to wear this mask, and I'm going to sleep, and I'm going to be better for it.

So there.

Obviously, pep talks are easing the anxiety here.

Speaking of pep talks, I read a book recently by one of my abs fav authors, Augusten Burroughs.  His most recent book, "This is How," is heartbreaking, uplifting and spectacularly arrogant at the same time.  His books draw graffiti and change my landscape.  After reading "This is How," I now walk around thinking "wipe that fucking smile off your face."

As a life-long nervous wreck, I use a smile to lie to myself and others about my health, happiness and capacity for listening to people whine.  I smile and laugh in my therapist's office.  At the end of the day, having used up all my smiles, my family gets to deal with the non-smiles (frowns? tears? yelling? going straight to bed?)

In the vein of "fake it 'til you make it," I smile to make myself feel happy.  When I actually am happy and having a good time, it's so easy for me to smile and laugh.  I don't have to fake it.  I suspect that when I fake it, people know.  Maybe not.  But I know.

I'm not going to smile under the CPAP mask, but I'm still going to wear it.