The state of things

So this is it: the new normal. Awake by 4:30a, checking the clock periodically before finally admitting defeat and rising in the deep darkness. Not a nightly occurrence, yet. Often enough, however, that I discern a pattern.

Could it be my own fault? That glass of wine last night, imbibed well after the safe time of early evening? Perhaps. Or it might be that helping of leftover broccoli salad that I enjoyed far beyond the dinner hour (unless I am suddenly Spanish and regularly dining late in the evening... but I'm not, and we don't.) I could blame the endless-but-finally waning holidays, too—Lord knows I've blamed them for everything else these past few weeks... Or the oddly warm weather, necessitating far fewer bedclothes than is normal for late December, causing too-warm discomfort.

But the uncomfortable truth is that I wake in wee hours even when I don't indulge myself foolishly in the ways I just mentioned, even when there are no encroaching holidays, and even when the weather is utterly and predictably seasonal. I still jerk into awareness at odd times, lie there, fret, pray, fret again. I am afraid that this frequent occurrence is the new normal. Middle age, cultural concerns, lingering health situations and relationship issues with family--all of it has wrought its resulting and most unwelcome wakefulness in my little world.

I am unhappy about this, to say the least.

I take a tiny bit of comfort in knowing that it happens to others, as well. Cranky conversations with people close to me reveal that they, too, suffer the same frustrations. I am not the only person tossing fitfully, over-thinking situations, attempting to calm both irrational and rational fears, trying to hear God's still, small voice amid the rush of restless thoughts in my ownskull. But mostly? I wish this didn't happen to any of us.

I have never excelled at sitting still, and age has worsened this twitchiness. I can clearly see how that makes the night-time wakings so painful; I can't effectively distract myself with any real busy-ness at that hour, not if I want to be a considerate housemate. I can't clean our home with gusto, I can't clomp up and down stairs with baskets of clothes and towels, I can't sing along with music to take my mind off of the sobering thoughts that spin themselves in my weary, woolly brain: I am old. i am too heavy. I am impatient; I fail daily at basic kindness and compassion, at not gossiping, at playing with and showing patience with my son. I am not as well off as I imagined I would be at this age; I don't have enough money reserved for retirement. Our house is too small, our cars dangerously old, my love too weak and my faith watery thin.

Did I mention that all those thoughts are compounded exponentially in the middle of the night?

Mostly, the sleepless hours remind me of my own powerlessness and helplessness; at all times, but especially at that hour, I am awash in the fact that I can control nothing—except how I respond to any given situation. Even this current uprising, my body's and brain's determined mutiny against me—all I control is how I react.

Not my favorite season. I miss true rest. In the meantime, I think I'll make some coffee to accompany my frets and prayers.

Quiet madness

That title doesn't really cover it, though. I'm trying to capture what happens most nights for me, sometime around 3 or 4:30am. That's the time I usually jerk awake. The house is still, my husband is breathing slowly and evenly next to me—and like an unwitting inverse correlation to his calm, I can barely catch my breath. I wake from bad dreams at times, but most often I simply open my eyes, feeling immediately anxious, worried about everything under the sun.

Why do I worry? It's pointless. It's unbiblical. It's a sign of weak or absent faith. I know all these things, consider them truths, yet there I lie, silently freaking out. Ebola will continue to spread thanks to unpreparedness in the United States, my family will be struck, some of us will die too soon... ISIS, having penetrated our borders, will begin systematically killing and capturing Americans in random places and the culture of sheep will permit it out of fear of offending someone... Our government will become even more corrupt and the society will crumble into martial law when bankruptcy must be faced and handouts are ended... And those are just the outside-of-our-home concerns. That's not even touching on the hours of darkness spent agonizing over illnesses and injuries, poor decisions and resulting chaos, and general mayhem and angst in the lives of people we care about. Not to mention the fear about my husband's job disappearing, the position replaced by a smaller team or simply deleted because the work has become obsolete, and then I will find that too many years out of the professional realm have rendered me stupid and archaic and worthy of only menial positions... (Thankfully, my dreams about my son disappearing seem to be diminishing.)

I'm driven by logic and reality. I know better, now, than to fill my mind with creepy books and movies about killers, and monsters, and sick-minded individuals—when I used to do that, I had awful thought and visions about those stories. Since I've sworn off that sort of thing for the most part, though, now my fears are always real. I can't easily discount them, especially not after midnight when there is no distraction from my own busy, disturbed brain. I pray, try to focus on other things, try to go back to sleep, and many nights it's all in vain.

I wish I could find solace and escape more easily. At least I think I do. Maybe I choose to be this way. Do we all choose to be the way we are? Happy? Somber? Thoughtful? Selfish? I do believe that sometimes we can influence our focus, but can I ever become a woman who wakes in the night and feels only peace? I want to be that woman. God wants me to be that woman. Becoming that woman is so much more challenging.

That's why I haven't written much lately. My skittering thoughts are still ponderous, albeit fast-moving. I don't know how that's even possible, but it is. And the older I get, the less important it feels to share them. To say anything, really, seems more and more futile.

Sorry for the downward spiral; it's fall, leaves are spinning down on my head, a harsh winter awaits, and I'm just being real. To quote a good friend, "it's part of my charm," you know. Carry on.

Purr, purr

I finished this painting of our dear kitty just before the holidays hit hard. She's so darned picturesque, you know? Most cats are, come to think of it. And on days like we had today, a cat is a fine example of how to behave if at all possible. Find a comfortable spot with some filtered light, or make a spot if nothing measures up. Get cozy. Nap. Wake, and nap again. Look out any nearby window, be thankful you don't have to be "out there," and then drift off once more.

Perhaps you're reading this from a warm, sunny place where you prefer being outside. That's great, but it's not that kind of day here. When I ventured outdoors earlier, I was pelted with tiny ice balls. They piled up, but not like fluffy snow—this stuff accumulated like the fake snow at ski lodges, all sharp and unnatural. I couldn't make a snowball out of this substance if I had to. And why, I ask, would I want to spend time surrounded by such an unwelcoming, unyielding surface? I wouldn't. Hence the cat example.

I only wish I could have napped. With a 7-year-old who'd already been on the sled, no cable TV, dirty laundry from holidays spent running, dishes in the sink from people home on vacation, and toys strewn across every flat surface, there was no napping here.

But that's okay. I'll leave it to the cat. Napping screws up my sleep at night, anyway. And I didn't have to drive on hazardous roads to a job today, so I'll count my blessings. I hope this post finds you safe in the place you most want to be.

Of couches and husbands

I had a friend years ago, newly married, who took it personally and injuriously that her husband fell asleep on the couch every night instead of coming to their bed in an intentional and timely fashion. Perhaps she was right to be concerned, as their marriage dissolved years ago... But anyway, when she told me this, I can recall thinking that I might be annoyed, too. Not because I'd take it to heart or feel slighted, but because the latecomer would disrupt my own already-sought-and-achieved slumber. Thoughtless.

And I was right. Because guess what? My own dear husband suffers from this same disease. Not on a daily basis, mind you, but often enough that it does affect my own slumber sometimes. He knows that falling asleep prematurely, outside of bed, negatively impacts his restful sleep patterns and causes him to toss and turn (yep, more disruption for me). We both know that research supports our findings, with sleep studies that show over and over how sleep is adversely affected by such behaviors. And he is fully aware that the minute he reclines on that inviting piece of furniture, and allows his eyes to flutter, he is a goner for sure. He knows all this. Yet, some evenings, in spite of my dire warnings and predictions, he persists in lying prone on the dastardly sofa and even covering himself with an assortment of fuzzy blankets. What the heck?! I guess I am a bit militant about such things, but honestly, once a pattern is established, and once everyone involved agrees it is not a healthy pattern and needs to be changed and/or avoided, I cannot comprehend a person's willingness to continue the pattern!

Am I crazy? Is it just a handful of husbands, or are they all this weak-willed when it comes to a cushiony divan in the dim of twilight?

Easy like Saturday morning

A sunny Saturday did dawn
And, unlike every other morn,
There was no rush, no lunch to pack,
No bus to catch to school and back.

Instead, the sun, so cheery, leaked
Through curtain slivers, where it streaked
The bedroom walls with happy light
That beckoned so a person might
Be moved to climb from underneath
The cozy nest of downy sheath.

But no—instead, that person (me)
Lay warm and dreamy, drowsily
Devising what the day might bring:
Some pancakes, fresh air, songs to sing...

For now? The covers would stay snug.
But wait! My son's insistent tug!!!*

Ugh!

Okay! I'm up!

* Actually, he didn't tug on covers this morning; he was so absorbed in Legos that I was able to lounge in bed for several minutes and get up when I was good and ready. That doesn't happen often here. The above scenario is more common. Either that, or he climbs all over my bed and jabs with elbows and knees until it's downright uncomfortable to remain, and I end up removing myself gladly.

Happy weekend!

Deep thoughts in the middle of the night

My son knows I am a light sleeper. And he knows, too, that I'm a sucker. Every now and again, he summons me to his room at 3 or 4am to help him find his missing teddy or other stuffed creature. The infrequent bad dream is also a reason for him to call me; the soft but definitive "Mom!" always brings me right out of a sound sleep.

The other night, though, we had a completely new conundrum.

The telltale "Mom!" came to me, quiet but insistent, at around 3:15am, and I hurriedly threw back covers and stumbled around the circumference of the bed and through the short hallway to my boy's room. I had to flip on the bathroom light (which is in the next room) so I could see what I was doing without blinding both of us with unwanted brightness.

There sat my son, upright at the head of his twin bed, in camouflage PJs, rubbing his semi-awake eyes and looking both weary and suspicious at the same time.

"What is it, Honey?" I asked.

"Mom, who took my sheets?" he countered in an accusatory tone.

What an odd thought. Why would he conclude that someone else had taken them? We were the only two in the room, yet this was his first assumption.

I was also half-awake, you recall, and my sensitivity was not at an all-time high as I gazed at him through squinty eyes and replied, "No one." I pointed at the foot of his bed, and there were the offending sheets and blankets, scrunched up into an unrecognizable mass... where he'd pushed them with his own restless feet and legs.

"You kicked them down to the bottom, Babe," I explained sleepily, and I helped him pull the bedclothes back up and rearrange them correctly over his soon-to-be-prostrate form. He snuggled down and was already halfway there, and I tucked him in and exited quickly before our interlude could become a full-fledged conversation, which I was mostly definitely not interested in pursuing.

But I thought about it a lot as I tried to get back to sleep, and on into the next day. How strange, that my little boy's limited exposure to the world, or me, or human nature, caused him to look for the guilty party who'd taken his covers, instead of grasping that he'd pushed them away from himself. How often have I done the same thing? Not just while sleeping, but also while fully awake? How often in my life have I sought the covers thief, instead of accepting responsibility and seeking to make it right so that I am "covered" from here on in?

See, I warned you these were deep thoughts...

By the dawn's early light

I am unfortunate in that I am a light sleeper. All my life, I can recall being awakened by various sounds in the wee hours. As a child, it was traffic, mostly. Although we lived in a rural setting, the house sat next to a busy state route, which happened to be the main thoroughfare for a couple of large truck operations—lucky us. We were especially lucky during those summers when a lusty big bull occupied the empty field across the road from my bedroom window. My goodness, but that bull did have a determined note in his voice when he bellowed in the wee morning hours.

Moving out of that house brought no peace. Dorm life followed (as if that existence could ever bring peace, unless you were foolish enough to remain in the structure over a minor holiday weekend). And then, off-campus life brought new neighbors within the confines of an old, sound-unproofed house: a deaf old lady who loved her television loud, and a foolish bunch of party hounds whose best schoolwork happened drunkenly and vociferously very late at night, directly over my apartment ceiling.

The best years of sleep might have been during my years of teaching. I was blessed with relatively quiet rentals where neighbors weren't home often or made little to no sounds. However, rest was still marred by all the bad dreams that I had. Each one featured an increasingly less obedient classroom, and by the time I had thrown in the towel, my chaotic subconscious had rendered the dreams almost unbearable in their lack of closure and control.

I moved back to Pittsburgh to a very cheap rental that was a unit in an old hotel of sorts. The building was U-shaped, with all the "front" windows of apartments opening onto a center parking lot. That place was annoying in that my early morning hours on hot nights brought me out of a sound sleep, awakened by the noise and the noxious odor of someone grilling hot dogs in the parking lot. The apartment after that one? A lovely, restful third story—which just happened to be situated next to a busy stop light in which various air-braked vehicles came first to a screeching halt, then to a grinding, groaning acceleration when the stop light once again permitted them to advance. To top it off, the light featured a bus stop. Some a**hole woke me at 6 or so one morning, singing aloud the few lyrics he knew from the movie Dirty Dancing; "I...had...the time of my life...and I owe it all to youuuuuu..." Over. And over. And over. The bus finally picked him up, not before I'd imagined a few little times of my own life which may or may not have involved hurting that guy.

My first married apartment? On a city street in a no-school-bus district, where loud little children traipsed up the sidewalk shouting at each other directly under our front windows. The next residence, our first purchased home? Why, on a dead-end road leading to an illegal residual waste holding station, for which waste arrived and left in large metal dumpsters... Did I mention that the road was very dilapidated and the trucks and their loads bounced when they hit those bumps at 5:00am?

So now we're in this house, and Verizon sits at our back, another illegal operation which was only supposed to house offices, not trucks and supplies—and which now stores bucket vehicles, treated poles, and immense spools of every type of wire you can imagine. They love to back up their vehicles at 4:30 and 5 in the morning. "Beep, beep, beep." During snowy mornings, those Verizon folks are so on top of things that they plow and scrape the sidewalk, loudly, before dawn. And don't forget the barking dog down the street, the canine squeak toy that I already moaned about here. Apparently, his bladder is tiny. Stupid dog.

I've announced over and over that the next house will be AWAY. I will not agree to another home/property purchase until there's the promise that I'll neither hear nor see another human being. But in this general area of the world, is that possible? Realistic? Un-Christian of me? I just want a good night's sleep. And yet, will that require a soundproof room, so I can't hear my son stirring? Will a good night's sleep allow any wiggle room for being shaken awake by my night-owl husband coming to bed? My wakeful husband, whose solution is simply to blast a fan for white noise, which is what we do for my son. But I hate the fan. It dries out my eyes and nose. It makes me wake up coughing in the night. I feel so isolated when it's blurring my contact with the outside world, when I have to wonder whether I'd hear an intruder in our home or my child being sick in his bed sheets.

Is there a solution? An adequate escape? Has the whole world given up and is resting peacefully, albeit cough-fully, against the soundtrack of a loud fan?

It's the principle of the matter, really: I shouldn't need to block out the world to get some rest. And yet.

Unbearable sweetness

I continue to be plagued by nightmares about losing my son. It’s especially bad in the hours between 4am and 6am; I am awakened, sometimes by coughing child (caused by allergies) and other times by puking cat (caused by sheer catness). Once awakened, I have trouble falling back asleep—and when I’ve finally achieved a sleeping state once again, I inevitably find myself dreaming that my child is missing in some form or fashion.

Sometimes, he’s in a crowd of children and I can’t visually locate him. Other times, I’ve entrusted him to someone else’s care and they’ve let me down by allowing him to wander, or giving him permission to go with someone else I don’t know. Each time, I am frantic in the dream, searching, calling, running around like a crazy woman, and there are always other people in the dream who think I’m a worrywart and tell me I’m over-reacting…kind of like my waking life.

Where does this come from? I wonder if it’s normal, or if I am, indeed, obsessed.

And the dreams are so terrible because he is so innocent. In each unwaking scenario, he trusts the people he’s with, he has naively gone with strangers, he never ponders whether someone means him harm or doesn’t plan to protect him adequately. He has simply followed whomever because he can’t conceive of a person who wouldn’t be kind or mean him well—because he is usually that way. Isn’t everyone? (Sadly, no.)

I was bemoaning recently how I’d love to go shopping and blow some money, and we just didn’t have it to blow… and my sweet boy said, “Mommy, you can have the money from my piggy bank. Go shopping with that money.” Now, that amount of change is not likely to take me far, but how sweet that he offered—it’s all he had. Like the widow in the Bible parable, he was willing to give his all. Just so I could splurge on something.

And he is delighted by the simplest things. I was stringing beads on a rawhide string, and the kiddo saw me and wanted to participate. I gave him his own leather string and some beads, and he went to town, stringing away, carefully picking out the perfect piece each time, taking some off and replacing them, until finally, the work of art was completed and we tied it ‘round his neck. As if that wasn’t darling by itself, I offered to open the closet door so he could look into the full-length mirror inside and admire his handiwork. He was so pleased at his own reflection sporting the beads that he grinned, put his hands on his head, and scurried away laughing with glee.

This is the little boy that I must eventually send into the world. How can I do it? How can I not do it? I shudder at the thought of how the world will scar him. Applying a germ philosophy, he must be first exposed in order to earn immunity. I know that’s true; I know he must be exposed. I’d even like to hope that perhaps, just perhaps, his innocence can counter some of the evil floating around out there. But I know how vulnerable he is, how hungry “they” are to strip away that childlike nature and sense of wonder.

This watching-him-grow thing is going to be tougher than I thought.

Grams for thought

There’s a movie called 21 Grams—perhaps you’ve heard of it—the title of which is based on some loose research that claims a body, passing into death, decreases in weight by an average of 21 grams. Is it the soul exiting the form? Or simply breath being exhaled one last time? Are the cells releasing oxygen, changing form, rearranging molecules, becoming less dense? I have no idea. I’m just sharing the theory with you in order to effectively contrast my next paragraph.

It’s odd, I think, for a body to supposedly become lighter in death, but heavier in slumber. I know, the sleeper doesn’t really become heavier—and yet, if you’ve held that sleeping child as he or she passes into true snooze mode, you know of what I speak.

It was not so easy to discern this transition when my little guy was a mere babe, because newborns always feel like dead weight to me, the floppy unpredictable little things. And then they start working on those neck muscles, trying sooooooo hard to hold up those giant weighty heads. And then, months later, it’s with much joy that you realize the child is actually attempting to cling to you, and that tendency in the little one grows stronger and stronger until he or she can actually “hold on” with arms and legs. That is when the passage into dreamland becomes more evident as you cradle the little one.

And what a precious moment that is, the transition. Subtle twitches in the drowsy one’s limbs become almost imperceptible, there’s perhaps a heavy sigh or two, the inevitable head flop if the child is resting over your shoulder, a barely detectable finger tapping… and then, weight. Heaviness. No movement. Only breathing.

It’s at those moments that I, too, participate by only breathing. Breathing in the sweet smell or freshly shampooed hair, or on alternate nights, the equally pleasing scent of earthy little head, mine to inhale. The sweet, small back and shoulders encased in fuzzy PJs, mine for the rubbing. Warm, soft hair, smooth delicate skin, eyes closed in blissful repose, the sandy lashes lying like fringed, still butterflies. All mine, to drink in as I choose, in the dim light of night. Mine for a limited time, to cherish.

To sleep, perchance to dream

What happened? I used to sleep like a dream. Blissful slumber was mine for the taking. Reaching the REM state was assured nearly every night; I awoke feeling refreshed, ready to face the day, the world, whatever it may bring.

Then pregnancy happened. Pregnancy and I did not get along too well. Among unexplained aches and pains, itches, giant pillows, and snoring (yes, I snored while pregnant), sleep fell by the wayside. All the other moms I knew laughed knowingly when I told them this; they looked at each other with a wiseguy gleam in their eyes, and said, “Yes, I remember—that’s to get you used to going without sleep. Then it won’t be such a shock when the baby comes.” Okay, that’s fine. Logical. Makes perfect sense. And it was kind of true, at least for me; by the time the wailing infant was entrenched in our home, sleeping more than 2 or 3 hours at a time had already become a very infrequent occasion.

But—ahem—the kid is now 2 ½. No longer an infant. And yes, he’s sick with a stuffy nose/cold/fever thingie right now, so sleep is not easy to come by for anyone in the home. But STILL. The reason I’m so beat today isn’t because I didn’t get enough sleep last night. No, I am exhausted and cranky today because last night was just one more night in which I slept like crap. The sleep I used to take for granted has become rare and elusive.

It’s partly because of the boy. Even when I don’t think I am, I still find myself listening for him, especially right now when his normal breathing patterns have been replaced by wheezing, whining, generally blocked attempts to take air into his lungs. Did the vaporizer use all its water? Is he too warm? Too cold? Is he on the verge of falling out of bed? Is his nose finally running, thereby plastering mucus to his pillowcase or whatever area of sheet he’s pressed his little face against? Perhaps I should just check…

Honestly, though, I can’t even blame the kid entirely. It’s his presence, somehow, and the way it’s altered me forever. I can’t quite relax like I used to. And I seem to have lost the ability to turn off my brain. Women stink at this skill anyway, and breeding has definitely affected my turn-off mode: That mode no longer exists. Prayer helps, but even that can't shut me down entirely.

Will it improve? Doubtful. I’ve already heard the stories about how you worry more as kids grow older. About how you never stop listening for them, even after they’ve left home. Besides, by the time that happens, I’ll be physiologically primed to a) go menopausal if I haven’t already, and b) simply require less sleep because I’m getting older.

Nap, anyone? Oh, wait—that’ll just make it harder to fall asleep tonight.

Coffee, anyone?!