The g-d dog woke me up again this morning, her nails clicking on the floor back and forth up and down the hallway, needing to go out. She needed to go out to eat grass and retch which was after she had thrown up on the floor at the foot of my bed. I let her out into the honeymoon-lit back yard and then I let her in, closed the door of my bedroom and pushed the wicker hamper in front of it so that she couldn't push the door open and back in. Perhaps as a punishment for my lack of compassion, for my un-dog-loverness, I was unable to go back to sleep and lay on my back for what seemed like hours having the darkest hour before dawn thoughts of loneliness and despair, and then the mediocre thoughts of the awake too early in the morning women. I wonder if Henry will have sex too early? My god, they never gave me a copy of Sophie's IEP before school let out! Should I email that director of the SPED office right now to ask him what the hell? What the hell, anyway? I read a Lydia Davis short story. It was 4 am and then 5am. I served my time, fell back asleep.
Those pre dawn hours are the worst. And Henry is a good and responsible kid so whatever he does will be with full consciousness and choice, I think. The tapes you've laid down in his mind also have more bearing than you think. In my experience, they're always further away from that edge than their mothers fear.
ReplyDeleteNo thoughts one ever has between the hours of 2 am and dawn are evil and not to be trusted.
ReplyDeleteI had some myself this morning around five.
We both survived. We did.
That happens to me all the time, g-d dog and all.
ReplyDeleteThere is something about those early-morning hours that make tiny or unlikely things seem HUGE. And then you wake up later and think, what was I so stressed about?!
If I wake up at midnight to pee, no problem: I'll fall right back to sleep. But if I wake up at 4 (and that happens a fair amount of the time), then lying back in bed the most nightmarish thoughts become real, plausible, things that need to be dealt with immediately. Even though cognitively I know that these thoughts shouldn't be taken seriously, it doesn't matter.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had a trick to share--"This always works!"
Everything seems worse at night. I know.
ReplyDeleteWe should call each other and read a Lydia Davis story aloud.
ReplyDelete