I hate you so much, Insomnia.
February 22, 2012
I can’t recall a time when I didn’t have insomnia.
There are flashbulb memories of it for sure.
I remember bits and pieces of Mom yelling at me for sleeping the days away as a teen. Just not much else.
Insomnia does that.
It robs you of your ability to think and to remember.
It takes those most precious memories that you have and smears them, twists them, sometimes even erases them completely.
I’m sitting here awake in the middle of the night because my brain will not stop.
Medicine doesn’t help.
Sleep therapists won’t include me in sleep studies because I have OCD and mild depression that is currently treated with Zoloft. I’m breastfeeding still so melatonin is out and the medicines aren’t a good idea until Molly is completely weaned.
I drink approximately one caffeinated beverage a week and am completely convinced that I will never have a normal night’s rest again.
I have chronic onset insomnia.
Whether my depression is active at the time, whether my OCD is managed.
Happy, sad. Fat, skinny. With a book, without one. With meds, without meds. Diet changes or junk food. Behavior changes or laughing in the face of all of the “tips” designed to help.
I can comfortably stay awake for about 30 hours before crashing, with meds I fall asleep about 4:00 every morning. I’d sleep until 2 or 3 without interruption if I could and would wake up exhausted 98% of the time.
It is what it is.
But I’m tired of what it is.
I’m a great mom.
But think about how fantastic I could be with a rested brain.
I’m a great wife.
But think.
THINK.
My life as a run-on.
February 7, 2012
I’m buying a house.
I’m buying a house and Molly is one and the custody situation hasn’t changed and I love to cook and am taking so many classes and marriage is hard but rewarding and I can’t get rid of the insomnia, but that’s okay because I have so much to research anyway for this house I’m buying… and how can I think of buying a house when I can’t have my daughter with me yet/ever?
Molly cuddles her head into my chest and says ‘Awww, sweet baby’ the way that I do every day and I melt. She screams and yells for the phone – fits that she throws that her father finds funny and I hold my own against.
They’re slowing down some, but this child will always be a force of nature. I hope.
Abs surprises me with these bouts of maturity and these moments of childishness that are so bittersweet for me. She’s on the cusp of so many wonderful things and I want her to have the knowledge and desire to reach for them.
And now I’m buying a house in this Illinois city, so far away from home. Two things I never would have seen for myself. Molly will have a yard – tiny – but a yard to play in. And neighbors. She’ll have things I couldn’t provide on my own for Abs.
It’s hard not to feel as though this seems to her as though I’m replacing her.
Abs is IRREPLACEABLE.
And I tell her that every day. Even if it’s just in my head sometimes.
My life, right now, is a run-on. Every event or thought or action runs into another because time is moving so fast.
I want it to slow down. I want it to stop.
Not in the bad way, in the way where I can just stop the moment, breathe it in and permanently place it in my memory so that I’ll be able to drag it out, years later, and devour it.
Ah, Stevo.
October 13, 2011
Tragic.
I’m really sick of tragic.
I’m sick of things happening that are because of some short slip of judgment, because of some moment of fate, because of just some tiny infinitesimal THING that changes the world.
I’m angry with people that change lives on some bad day of theirs. That do something that they can’t ever take back. That hurts so many.
Today was a memorial service for a 22 year old kid. A good, fun kid that was about to marry his girlfriend of many years, a kid that was finally working a Real Job and making his way in the world. He was growing up and becoming and because he was stupid when drunk, he’s gone and no one will ever get over it. Certainly not his girlfriend, who had an upfront and personal view of his violent passing. Certainly not my parents, who held her screaming in the middle of the street while the police and coroner worked in the house. Certainly not his parents, woken up in the middle of the night with the worst news any parent can ever receive.
And I’m angry with him.
He was too good for this.
Too fucking good for this.
And I feel this overwhelming weight and sadness at this – this price of living. Running into tragedy and unfairness even as you run into happiness and miracles.
The mixture is nauseating and overwhelming at times.
And I’m just so mad.
But mostly sad.
Mini Me is mobile. The world will never be the same.
September 20, 2011
I gave birth to an octopus.
I’ve never seen such a baby.
She’s like a ninja.
A cord-eating ninja superhero with the ability to move faster than the speed of light.
At least she’s cute.
I.
September 11, 2011
I’ve closed the news sites for now.
It’s 1:00 in the morning and I’m still so completely overwhelmed by the events of ten years ago that I am numb on the inside with goose bumps on my arms.
There’s a slight tingling feeling – as though movement is anticipated but impossible.
It’s addictive, looking at these stories.
So completely damned addictive because part of my OCD brain feels that if I look at all of them, every single one, that somehow that gives some closure to someone somewhere. That I can HELP.
But that’s insane.
And looking is making me insane.
Ten years.
Generations from now they’ll study this in detail in history class the way I studied Pearl Harbor.
They’ll have analyzed and rewritten texts over and again and know so many more answers than we knew – know – now.
The longer term effects will be known.
The health problems of the responders will hopefully be covered.
Perhaps terrorism will be less of a problem.
I hope so.
For me now sleep seems impossible.
I wonder how many others out there are sitting at their computers feeling the same way.
Three weeks.
September 10, 2011
Three more weeks of Minnesota living.
Three weeks until I become a Chicago person.
What DO Chicago folks call themselves?
Chipeople?
Chicagoans?
Chicagoites?
Nick left this morning to avoid arriving tomorrow and starting work as a zombie on Monday morning.
Which left Molly and me here alone to finish up the job of packing and hanging out until the condo is ready at the end of the month.
I’d show you a picture of this place, but I’m too embarrassed.
Let’s just say this is going to be a JOB.
Especially since Molly is crawling like a spider monkey and her favorite thing in the entire world is an electrical cord.
And there is NO way to baby proof in a moving house.
And NO one within 14 hours to help me out.
This is going to be a LONG three weeks.
Practicing political tolerance.
September 8, 2011
I’m having a hard time.
Every 4 years the flashiest sporting event comes around – yes. The presidential elections.
And every year it gets a little harder for me to keep my mouth shut.
After all, how can people believe THIS or THAT?
Did they not do the math?
Not read between the lines?
Not spend hours fact-checking to make sure they had the facts of the matter before spreading their opinion around sheep-like?
And the emails. Dear heavens. The emails.
Political forwards, sent from family member to family member – and eventually to me.
Only. I don’t agree.
I’ve never agreed.
I don’t believe that all immigrants should HAVE to speak English before gaining citizenship or residency status. I’m rather glad my ancestors weren’t held to that standard or I’d have ended up in a completely different place. How egocentric is it that folks feel that folks trying to make a better life for themselves should learn our language to make things easier on US?
And.
Yes.
Outbursts like that.
So I take deep breaths and mute conversations that get me too worked up.
I pass on responding to many comments that seem so ignorant to me.
Politics aside, people deserve to have opinions, whether based upon their research or not.
They can base it on a clown’s nose stuffed up a dog’s butt if they want to and you know what?
I still need to respect their right to voice their opinion without forcing them to swallow mine.
And that is what I’m trying like HELL to remember.
Furniture shopping. Or, How to give my husband a heart attack.
September 2, 2011
For weeks and weeks I’ve been sitting on a wooden plank.
No.
I’m not a masochist.
I’m just large assed.
With enough weight to flatten a $300 couch’s cushions.
You really shouldn’t expect much of $300 couches, I know.
But!
My husband was trying to be frugal when he bought it.
And its ugliness has served him well for many years.
I’m just saying that when you sit down and get splinters, the thing’s gotta go.
That agreed upon, I set out to find something that my husband might actually buy and enjoy.
Think ugly. Very comfortable and very, very ugly.
Scratch that. I googled “ugly couches” to give you an idea of what I meant and am now humbled by the crap out there that people will rest their butts upon.
Surely ugliness that pronounced will rend a sort of fungus upon those who rest upon it?
Ahem. I digress.
Damn.
My entire train of thought derailed because people keep this in their house:
Life stops for the mobile child. Or more to the point, Everything else BUT the mobile child stops for the mobile child.
September 1, 2011
I need 6 arms.
Or more.
I may need more.
Never have I been so acutely aware of the fact that one child outnumbers a set of parents.
Perhaps I should have been alarmed when the doctor said, “She’s the busiest baby I’ve ever seen in all my years of practice!”
But mostly I felt proud.
Maybe I should have known something was bound to be wrong with a child that will eat anything put in front of her – she doesn’t turn her nose up at any kind of food. It’s all fair game.
But I was just so happy she didn’t have the weight problems that some of my friends’ babies have.
But now.
Now everything she sees is Food.
Those with children are laughing, thinking that that’s how every baby views the world.
But no! I can assure you! I’ve done this before.
This is DIFFERENT.
She Jedi mind tricks the world around her into shedding the normal physical rules that define it.
The basket across the room containing all of the things I must pack for our move – because we are moving – what a better time to move than JUST after your baby has become mobile… But that basket? The one with the Things? The Things She Cannot Have Without Threat of Death?
You blink and it has crossed the room to her.
There is no other explanation to explain the handfuls of the Things protruding from her mouth.
For she has not moved.
You know she hasn’t.
You’ve been staring at her the whole time.
Except for the involuntary blinking that comes with having eyes and eyelids to blink.
But surely no MORTAL baby could have moved so quickly?
But she has.
Note the paper that she has brought over to her toys. The blankets in the background that she has dragged around. The box that she dumped over and unpacked. And this is just the Mostly Untouched side of the room.
Oh. Did I not mention that this wonder being was SICK while she was running around so crazily?
Note the snot.
Today was only half speed.
Lord, help me.
I’ve given birth to a Tasmanian Devil on speed.
Mama said, Mama said.
July 20, 2011
But! Before this, there are moments like these that make it all worthwhile:
This child may grow up to be a Holy Terror – but at least she’s fun to play with.
