Archive Notes: This is an English translation and rewritten version of a blog post originally published in Japanese on October 6, 2019. [Japanese version]
Another long day in the books.
If there’s one bright spot, it’s that I actually managed to get a solid night of sleep last night.
My Fitbit registered a Sleep Score of “80,” which falls into the “Good” range.
I’m not entirely sure what triggered that “Good” rating—whether it was because I hit my target bedtime and wake-up times, or because I logged a total of 7 hours and 2 minutes of sleep. Curiously, my deep sleep was only a meager 16 minutes, so the algorithm remains a bit of a mystery to me. Still, whenever I get a “Good” score, I definitely notice feeling much less drowsy during the daytime.
By contrast, on the day my mother was rushed to the emergency room by ambulance, my sleep score plummeted to “38”—categorized as “Low.”
Well, I only got about 2 hours of sleep that night, so I suppose that score makes perfect sense.
Sleeping, eating, and exercising.
If even one of these three fundamental pillars breaks down, the human body collapses far more easily than we think.
And there’s one more element that is just as vital: laughter.
When you lose the ability to laugh, your spirit begins to crumble.
Even when it feels like a chore, I force myself to eat. Even on exhausting days, I refuse to skip my daily workout routine. And above all, being brought to laughter by a tiny, zero-year-old angel, while somehow managing to catch enough sleep—these are the very things keeping me afloat right now.
This afternoon, my son came over to visit again, so we headed to the hospital together.
A staff member from the care center my mother had been using asked to join us, so we met up and went into her room together.
Since my mother’s birthday is next week, they kindly presented her with a gift—a beautiful Imabari bath towel. It was such a lovely towel that I washed it right away so she could start using it on her hospital bed immediately.
Tomorrow morning at 10:30 AM, I have to attend the official assessment for her nursing care certification.
The days are rushing by in a dizzying blur.
To top it all off, having a tax record guidance session scheduled right in the middle of all this chaos… sigh.
I don’t even have time to prepare!
But still, I have to step up and get it done.
It’ll all work out somehow.
I’ll make it work out.
Hang in there, self!
