Tell me how tired you are

It's the morning and your alarm has just gone off - an angry buzzing sound breaking into that peaceful murky bliss. You hit the alarm with a surprising amount of force and sit up in bed.

The problem is that you feel like you haven't slept at all and you are still tired. No, not just tired. Bone tired, where you feel like time is catching up with you and you are seriously considering laying back down in the bed. You do some quick math (ugh! math first thing in the morning) to determine if you have enough time off to call in sick to work or at least entertain the thought.

Your inner bear starts to emerge: If I can't sleep, I'll be grumpy.

In other words: You are exhausted.

Maybe we should take some comfort in the fact that we are all exhausted. And it's not just in this time - people throughout history have felt exhaustion, but may have had a different term for it.

Sure, we try to get around our tiredness: We drink caffeine, we play mind games to convince ourselves we aren't tired (with varying degrees of success) and we try not to compare out tiredness to other people's.

I don't remember being exhausted when I was a child, although (judging from my own son's behavior) I am sure that I moaned and complained to my Mother about being tired whenever we had to stand in line, complete household chores or clean up after play time (sorry, Mom!)

And yet, we still keep moving. Maybe it's the knowledge that stuff has to get done and we are the ones to do it. Or maybe we have hope that tomorrow will be a better day. Whatever the reason: I'm proud of you, and wish you a restful night.

How tired are you? Tell me in the comments.