One of Those Nights

[Shen]

At eleven, I take the first little pill that would help me sleep. This is the one I take every night. Usually, it’s enough, but tonight I’m not so sure.
What a wound-up day.

I look inside and see a frantic mess of thoughts, demands, blame, anger, sadness, anxiety and self-doubt. Quickly, I come up with at least six new projects I could start in the morning.

I don’t understand why the more frenzied my mind is is, the more I throw at it. There is never enough to cover the chaos. Nothing can smother the smoldering heat which radiates out in reactive remarks. I know it doesn’t do any good, yet even as I notice the anxiety building, I dump more fuel on the fire.

The online word game is a good distraction – for two minutes at a time.
The minute in between games is a study in frantic activity.

Check email.
Check my scrabble games to see if it’s my turn.
That killed five seconds.
Pretend to watch TV for twenty seconds.
Is it time for the game to start?
Check email.
Check scrabble games.
Ten seconds to go.

I spend two minutes searching for words on a grid. The turmoil fades into the background. I don’t have to think until the game ends.
I’ve won.
I’ve lost.
I’ve come in with the middle of the pack.
It doesn’t matter.

Check email.
I’ve done everything right.
Check scrabble games.
I worked on my book and went to the store and did some laundry and went out with my parents and had them here for a BBQ, and played games and cleaned up and kept very busy and searched websites about new things and researched them and contacted people. In fact, I’ve started new projects every day this week and I’m already the busiest person I know.
And I still feel like crap.
It's not fair.
I deserve the distraction of this game.

Again, it fades away for two minutes.

Check Email.
Find something.
Shoot off a reply to a friend.
Go back to the game, but find that it's in the middle of a round.
Now I have two minutes to kill.

It isn’t always like this. Sometimes the game is just fun competition. The banter in the chat box is amusing or interesting or not all that exciting, but it's enjoyable.

But when I am frantically trying to fill the void between games, I know things are a mess. This is no exception. I know I'm upset about something, and I really think I understand what it’s about. I have no sense that I’m avoiding anything. Inwardly, I scowl at the memory of a man I knew online two years ago.
That's what's causing my distress.
I’m certain of it.

Forget, ignore, push aside.
Two minutes later, I check my scrabble games, again.
Yes. It’s that man’s fault.
Check email.
And my father. Let’s not forget him. Spending the afternoon with him is always stressful.

I open an email I received earlier. I”ve already replied to the email, but I reply again.
An update.
A study in stress.

Two minutes distraction in a game.

Check email.
Check scrabble games.
Find one game with "It's your turn" beside it.
Open the game and study the letters for a bit... go back to the two-minute reprieve from life... study the letters some more... check email.

Wham!

Part of an email from C:

You have losses coming and need time to let yourself grieve.
I hope you can find some time tomorrow.

Reply to C (the seventh email I've sent her in a day):

How do you always know?
Even when I think I'm looking at it, even when I think I'm really
in touch, I’m still so able to shove aside what i need to look at
most. Of course you're right. all this anxiety, all this running
around, keeping so busy, the cycling thoughts that just won't
quit – that’s what it’s about.
How many more things can I pile on to cover up what's real?
Its pretty amazing.
sorry i am sending so much.
I really did not even see what it was about.

The distraction of the game is not working anymore. It can’t hold my attention, even for two minutes. My mind strolls back to one word: loss.

Turn off the computer.
Head upstairs.
Look at the lonely, only Xanax in the bottle and wonder why I keep putting off calling the doctor to renew the prescription.
Shrug at the empty bottle.
As good a time as any.
Take the pill.

At midnight, the drugs and a book lull me into sleep. Like the blankets I pull over me, deep slumber covers everything even better than the game. If I was conscious of anything, it was gratitude for that.

Desperate barking wakes me at two a.m.
Ugh. Jake.
The fourteen-year-old lab often needs extra outings in the middle of the night. I usually attend to these, but the drugs have me so out I can’t imagine leaving my bed.
He barks again.
I nudge my husband.
He has to hear that barking.
I nudge him again, harder. “Did you hear something?”
And again. “Honey? Did you hear something?”
IThere's a lot of pretending. I act as if I don't know what the dog wants and acts as if he can't hear me or the dod, but for once, I win this silly battle.
He gets up with the dog.
I feel guilty, but fall back into my Xanax coma.
For two minutes.

“Was M staying overnight somewhere, tonight?”
“Huh?” I really can’t wake up.
“He’s not home.”
It begins to sink in.
It’s after two a.m. Our seventeen-year-old son is not home. Curfew is long past.
He never stays out this late without calling.
I reach for the phone and dial his number – incorrectly.
Forcing myself to wake up more fully, I redial.
No answer.
Oh God Oh God.
I’ve been so dreading his leaving home in the fall. Now I imagine things much worse than a child going off to college.
The phone rings.
It’s him.
Thank God.
“Where are you? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m in the car with Hanah. We had a little… issue, but it’s resolved now. I’ll be home soon.”
“What kind of issue?”
He’s safe.Thank you.
A pause. “I’ll tell you when I get home.”
My husband is in the doorway. I repeat the conversation for him.
“Jesus.”
He heads back downstairs to wait.
It’s two fifteen. I thank God again that my son is safe and then thank the Xanax as I drift off.

It’s five-thirty.
Oh Jake, not again.
Another bark, more insistent.
I have to take this one.
I hang on to the railing as I head down the stairs in the dark. I turn on the light at the bottom of the steps. The old lab’s tail thumps on the floor as he watches me approach, but he doesn’t get up until I have my hand on the doorknob. He turns his graying face towards me, ears down, eyes squinted against pain he tolerates much better than I would. He struggles to get his failing back legs under him and trembles as he heads outside.

How many more nights of this?

As always, this thought is followed by memories of the puppy he was, of what my life was like the day we brought him home.
K was a precocious eight-year-old. The boys were five and three. I was pregnant L… my baby… how did she get to be thirteen? How can it be that she will be in high school in the fall… and that Jake is such a very old dog?

He isn’t very speedy, anymore. I lay on the sofa and wait for the bark that will let me know he’s ready to come in. When it comes, it's starting to get light. I have to go out in the grass in my bare feet to get his attention because he can't hear me anymore. He barks, facing away from the door, oblivious to my approach.

At six, I head back upstairs, knowing my husband has flipped onto his back from the buzz-saw sound that rumbles down the hall.
I check my son’s room. Door’s locked.
He’s home.
I climb into bed and push my husband's shoulder insistently until he groans and rolls back on his side.
The snoring stops.
I close my eyes in the silence.
The silence...
That damn silence! Reality waits there, and I want nothing to do with reality.
I just want to sleep.

I don’t sleep.

I think about K wasn't she just eight a minute ago? and the wedding we’re planning. I think about what it will be like with both the boys gone in the fall.
I remember them squabbling over swings in the back yard.
I worry about L.
What will it be like for her, living as an only child for the next four years?
When I am gone for the evening, my husband is usually working and she’ll be here alone.
When my husband and I go on vacation next fall, a trip we’ve taken every year for a dozen years, she will be the only one left behind.
I think about how close she is to her brother.
I remember my older siblings leaving for college.
The word from the email haunts me.
I worry and I remember and I wonder and an hour passes.
Jake... M... and Sheri.

For most of my life I've avoided close friendships. I didn't know I was avoiding them, but I was.
Isn't it interesting that the first best friend I had -the one that set me up to be so afraid of having close friends in the first place - had the same name as the one that is moving away this weekend?

Finally, I've started to let people in, to be honest about my feelings, and to really listen when others speak. Finally, I've allowed myself to get close, to feel, and now she's moving away.
Yes, we can still text and talk on the phone and email… but it won’t be the same as seeing her every Saturday. The group won’t be the same without her.

Every hello brings a goodbye and every goodbye brings pain and sometimes it just doesn’t seem worth it.

I can't fool myself into believing that anymore. Not really. I realize that even this kind of pain
grief - she called it grief
is better than the complete isolation I've felt for so long.

I doze again.
I dream of my sister.
We’re laughing.
We're playing a word game.
We're killing time until she walks out the door.
Again.
It’s a scene I’ve lived so many times.
I wake up and realize it’s a scene I replay every evening.

Loss.
Grief.
She’s right, of course. I have to give myself time to grieve.

It’s nine in the morning. The sky is cloudy, but I hear the spring call of mourning doves.

Give myself time to grieve... but how do I do that? What does that even look like?

The old dog sees me coming down the stairs. He doesn’t lift his head, but his tail thumps against the floor. I find my youngest in the kitchen and hug her tight. Coffee is already made, and still hot.

“Are we getting flowers today?”
I look to the west and point to the storm that’s coming. “Doesn’t look like it, today.”
“Oh,” she says as she furrows her brow at the blue-gray and black horizon.
I wonder if I’ll ever get the garden in, this year?
“Want to play a game?” she asks, still looking at the sky.
“I have some writing to do, first, but I will later.”
“Okay.”

She gets her book and settles on the couch. In moments she’s engrossed.
I pour coffee and turn on my laptop.
Thunder rumbles in the distance as I strike the first key

[IleneW]

Thank you, Shen.

I had to read what you wrote several times.

It was compelling and powerful.

I want to process it for awhile, before I reply.

Thanks so much for your post.