urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire The Journal of Seanan McGuire Seanan McGuire 2015-01-15T18:48:32Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:seanan_mcguire:612049 2015-01-15T18:48:32Z 2015-01-15T18:48:32Z Counting Crows, "Sullivan Street." Today is January 15th, 2015. My last day of full-time employment for someone other than myself was January 15th, 2014. The last time I set an alarm for anything other than a trip to the airport or a convention was a year ago.<br /><br />A year ago today, I started sleeping.<br /><br />It's sort of remarkable: I hadn't realized how much of myself I had sold for health insurance and a desk with my name tacked to the wall next to it until I started to sleep again, and started to wake up. Because seriously, that's what sleep allowed me to do. I slept ten, eleven, twelve hours a night, with two-hour naps every day, for three weeks. Not out of depression; out of the sheer joy of sleeping, the restorative delight of starting to feel like myself again. The sleeping tapered off. These days, I go to bed at 11:00, go to sleep at 11:30 (slow sleep insomnia), and wake up between 7:00 and 7:30. Naps are rare.<br /><br />I have had two major illnesses in the past year, versus ten to fifteen a year for the last several. One was a twenty-four hour stomach bug that could have hit anyone, regardless of how rested they were; the other was a cold brought home by my housemate and incubated on my flight to London. I have slept through the night almost every night. I have become happier, more stable, and more productive.<br /><br />(The more productive has actually been a problem, as I'm flooding my poor proofreaders with material. I was always fast. Now I'm working at more what I consider my "normal" speed, and it's terrifying.)<br /><br />A lot of people asked how I was going to stave off boredom. The answer was, and remains, that I will let them know when I actually get bored.<br /><br />It hasn't happened yet.