Friday, August 05, 2005

Couldn't sleep

Yesterday wasn't a good day. There was no particular reason for it. That's not true, there was a reason for it, but I don't want to start World War III, so I'm not going to discuss it here. Anyway...yesterday wasn't a good day. And last night, for the first time in a couple weeks, I couldn't sleep.

There I sat in my rocking recliner watching the minutes tick by from midnight to about 1am listening to the crickets chirp and the cicadas sing outside the living room picture window. I thought about how I used to sit there, all big and round and happily pregnant, snuggled in a big blanket while the snow fell outside that same window. I thought about how it felt to be warm and safe...feeling like my biggest worry was whether I would have enough sleep to function the next day at work. I thought about how I talked to Alex all those nights...and made deals with him so he would go to sleep. I thought about how I should have enjoyed those moments more and not so easily wished them away.

But these thoughts were strangely different this time. This time there was a feeling of missing him and a feeling of sadness...but there was something else. Suddenly it popped into my head...my life goes on. Sure, it's different than it was...I'M different than I was. But I can incorporate this into my being and make something new of my life rather than this "thing" incorporating me so that I have nothing left of my own life. A piece of me died, but I have to remember that all of me didn't.

I can sit in that chair and mourn what I've lost without feeling like I've lost everything. Of course, that's not going to stop those moments from coming where I feel like I've lost everything. But I'm slowly finding that those moments are fewer and farther apart in time. And I can work through the hard times. I've survived the worst...now I need to work to make something of what's left. Some days I'm not going to feel like working at it. Some days I'm still going to sob and order carry out for dinner because that's all I can manage. But not every day.

3 comments:

Lisa P. said...

This reminds me of part of a poem I heard in the movie "Truly, Madly, Deeply" (a wonderful film IMHO) by a Spanish poet named Pablo Neruda...

"If you no longer live,
if you, beloved, my love,
if you have died,
all the leaves will fall in my breast,
it will rain on my soul night and day,
the snow will burn my heart,
I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,
my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping,
but I shall stay alive"

You are a very strong woman. (((hugs)))

laura said...

wow - that is a beautiful poem, lisa! i love pablo neruda but i don't know that one. and i keep meaning to rent that movie...

cath, i am really proud of you for facing your grief head on. you deserve all the peace you can get, even if it's uneven.

grumpyABDadjunct said...

I'm proud of you! You deserve to feel comfortable in your new state of being, and to know and talk about that comfort.

Not sure if that makes sense, but it is the best way I can put it right now.

Mom

My mom insisted on living independently. She wanted to live in the two-story house she and my dad built in the 70s, despite the fact that da...