Why do I feel guilty for napping?

Nobody's actually checking. I checked.

Becoming a Student of Yourself

3 a.m. Wide awake. Not because of anxiety, drama, or a troubled soul. Because of a bladder with its own agenda.

Back to bed, usually. Sometimes a snack first. Always a scroll through Substack, checking on subscribers scattered clear around the other side of the world — 3 a.m. here, lunchtime somewhere else, which feels like a perfectly good reason to wonder about them. Then the television, tuned to old West Wing reruns, not for the plot, just for the sound of people talking calmly to each other until sleep comes back around.

For months, this whole routine felt like evidence of something wrong.

Then a stranger on the internet fixed it with one sentence: turns out, sleep patterns change with age, and 4 a.m. might just be when the night’s business is done. Not a malfunction. A schedule.

Well.

That’s one crisis solved by absolutely nobody trying. Yay!

Solitude took longer, because a nastier internal voice ran that show — the one insisting the neighbors think there’s something wrong with a woman who prefers her own company to a crowd. That voice shows up loudest exactly when things are going well. Sitting on the balcony at dusk, deep in a painting, thoroughly delighted — right on cue, in walks the imaginary jury to ask what the neighbors must think.

Here’s what silenced the jury: permission. Actual permission, not just tolerance. Solitude isn’t a symptom. It’s a preference, same as some people prefer aisle seats and others prefer the window.

A daughter still worries, bless her — she’s read the articles about lonely retirees and now treats solitude like a smoke alarm going off. Those articles were never written with introverts or artists in mind. Some of us need the quiet the way a soufflé needs an unopened oven door.

And there’s a good chance ten-years-ago-self would be horrified by all of it. That woman was out chasing belonging — the art club, the local political party committee, every group with an opening, proving usefulness like it was a full-time application process. She never once dreamed of becoming a creative hermit by choice. She’d take one look at these West Wing reruns and two-hour naps and tell this version to get a grip and call somebody.

Turns out normal was never actually the assignment.

Even the shoes got the permission treatment. Slippers used to be automatic every morning — shuffling around half-asleep, same as always, no questions asked. Then a pair of slip-on walking shoes showed up, and swapping them in for the slippers turned into a tiny experiment. Would anything really change?

Everything did.

Posture straightened right up. Energy showed up before the coffee even finished brewing. A thirty nine -dollar pair of shoes, and the whole morning felt different.

That’s the real discovery in all of this — not the sleep, not the solitude, not even the shoes. The discovery is what happens the moment “how should I be” gets traded for “what do I actually notice.” One good, true noticing — this life works, this life is loved — and both shoulders dropped an entire inch, no invitation required. The jury went home.

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Not a project anymore.

A student. Taking notes on an experiment nobody assigned, and enjoying every page of it.

Here’s the smallest possible way to try this on: next time hands end up under warm, soapy water at the sink, actually notice it. The warmth. The lather moving between fingers. Thirty seconds of a completely mundane task, paid real attention for once instead of running on autopilot toward whatever’s next.

Do that enough times with enough mundane moments, and something starts to surface: what actually gets felt, underneath the doing. Sometimes that’s a small jolt of awe over something as plain as soap and water. Sometimes it’s a quieter realization — that a particular task could be done differently, or dropped altogether, because autopilot had been running the whole operation without ever asking.

Either way, that’s the whole practice. Not fixing. Not improving. Just noticing, on purpose, one mundane moment at a time — hands in the sink, shoes on the feet, an evening on the patio — until the noticing itself starts telling the truth about what’s actually being lived.

So here’s a question, not advice: what’s the jury in your head been convicting you of lately? Sleeping wrong. Wanting too much quiet. Loving a life nobody else would recognize as a life. Whatever it is, it’s got a name, and it’s been running longer than you’ve noticed.

Nobody’s grading this. Not you. Not the jury. Not the daughter with the AARP article. Not the version of you from ten years ago who’d be scandalized by all of it.

Go find out what you actually notice, once nobody’s watching for the wrong answer.

A recent video walks through exactly this, using something as small as washing your hands to invite a little awe and wonder into an otherwise ordinary moment: Invoke a Feeling of Awe and Wonder

Invoke a feeling of awe and wonder

Nobody’s grading this — but if the jury in your own head could use some backup, join the weekly Breakthrough gathering. A room full of women taking a different look at retirement, kicking down assumptions one at a time, together instead of alone.

New paid members get 20% off this week, plus the full perks library — including everything mentioned in this piece and more.

Pst. If you click on a regular subscribe button there will not be a 20% discount. That only occurrs when you click the above button ⬆

And if something in this piece made you pause, nod, or feel a little less alone — please give it a heart before you go. That one small tap tells the algorithm this conversation matters. It puts these words in front of another woman who needs to hear them today. She's out there. Help me find her.