Resting easy. (Some might suspect, too easy?

I HAVE LESS ENERGY THIS MORNING THAN I HAD HOPED, but I'm not wiped out. And I'm not discouraged. I'm reminded of times in the past where I mistook letdown for fatigue.

Today, in other words, I may not be fatigued so much as I am relaxed. Yes, I have an underlying fatigue, which I have been chronically overlaying with an amalgam of stimuli, demanding of myself to not give in to the fatigue, but rather to perform as though I was rested and fit.

I've been my own drill sergeant, my own football coach, demanding top performance, demanding that I treat perceptions of fatigue as if they were shameful. This is what I think of as my Eternal Vigilance.

I think this is what has kept me from fully restorative sleep. I haven't been able to turn off the Vigilance Switch.

I suspect that this is an element of aging. Sixty years ago, I could keep going for days on end, fighting fatigue and performing at a high level, and then collapse into a coma and wake up refreshed. Decade by decade, though, the ability to let go and drop into the bottomless pit of the deepest sleep has left me, by degrees.

I still have a surprising amount of endurance. When needed, I can go without sleep, and keep functioning, mentally if not physically, long after fatigue sets in.

But when the demands are removed, I stay tense for days, if not weeks. And I wonder how many other people my age are dealing with the same phenomenon.

Be that as it may, I'm interpreting my lethargy today in a positive light. It means that I'm relaxing, which, in turn, means that I'm replenishing my resources.

7:15 P.M. -- I WENT DOWN FOR A NAP after lunch; awoke and, even after a shower, was only slightly refreshed. But as I slowly "came to," I realized that I was being affected by very high humidity. (Talk about too many variables!) It was extremely, oppressively muggy. (It even made the evening news.) Once I realized this, I sat barefoot with a fan on me, and after a couple of hours I regained some vitality.

The humidity is predicted to drop, tonight. The soreness of my muscles is almost gone. So I'm planning to ride tomorrow.