do you ever have those nights when you just don't even know if you're real? when life is so turned upside down and busy changing and you feel so lost that you think you might've disappeared and not realized it?
tonight i am drinking cranberry juice cut with water. i gave up alcohol for lent. which is probably a good thing since i'd probably just be drunk. i remember when i was young, any time i got congested, my mom would give me a decongestant. and it would make me feel all foggy in the head. i saw a commercial once that used the term "medicine head" and i decided then that it was the decongestant that made me feel all foggy. so i quit taking decongestants. it was only in the last couple of years that i've been able to admit to myself that my conclusion that the medicine caused the fog might have been wrong. because even though i never take decongestants, i can tell you that when my sinuses are bad enough, i feel really foggy in my head. so maybe sometimes it was medicine head...and maybe other times it was sinus/cold/congested head. well, the same way...i think sometimes i drink and associate a certain feeling with drinking when really, it's just the emotion that made me think drinking would be a good idea.....and whether i drink or not, i still feel the same. the headache in the mornings is always worse after drinking, though.
i'm sitting at the computer, listening to sheryl crow's christmas cd. in march. at the end of the warmest winter i've ever experienced. that came after the driest summer i'd ever experienced. something's going on with the world...or at least in texas, because this weather pattern is kind of nutty. but i just needed some christmas cheer, even if i can feel the approach of spring. i didn't sing o, holy night at the top of my lungs, though. that's only for the car. (and definitely not the house with sleeping children.)
and i'm in a house with all of my kids, but no spouse. he's off delivering babies. which is a noble endeavour. even though he's not on call. but he told these women he'd deliver them. (yes, doctors do choose favorites, so to speak...not that they can make every delivery they've said they'd try to make, but you know how it goes...and if you don't, well, you must not be married to a doctor).
it has been a rough couple of weeks.
i feel like i have been a warrior for my family in the last eight years that my spouse has been pursuing medicine. i know i was pretty weary at the end. but i really felt like i had found some strength in myself that just blew me away. i don't know if everyone else was as impressed with me as i was, but there were days i just couldn't believe i was doing it. especially after baby number five came along. that's when my household got pretty lax and lots of things went undone, but i was still doing it...you know, waking up in the morning, getting out of bed...that shit can get hard, but i still did it, you know? but tonight i feel like a marshmallow...an invisible marshmallow even. and i kind of just want to sink in on myself. and sleep. and maybe not wake up tomorrow or get out of bed. maybe just sleep through the weekend. maybe sunday afternoon would be a good time to wake up...
ah, but those are just musings of a tired mama drunk on cranberry juice and sheryl crow.
trust is so very...i don't know...fragile? i don't think so. i think if something fragile breaks, it sounds like little tinkling glass. these past couple of weeks have been like huge chunks of rock just falling. i guess the biggest chunks fell last week. it's good no one got squished. but maybe i did. and maybe that's why i feel so not real. there have also been other pieces that have fallen this week...but they're really small...and probably, they're really tiny and only make me look up and notice how big of a chunk fell previously. the absence of trust hurts so much. i believe the pain it leaves in its absence is directly related to how big it was to begin with. ouch.
but i don't want to dwell on this. i want to start rebuilding. there's all that open space...let's put something in its place! but i am still so tender. and i don't really feel like anyone misses it as much as i do...or maybe that anyone notices the huge, gaping hole that i do. it's not just in me. it's in this house. in all of these relationships. for so long i've been the emotionally intelligent one in the house. i think most of these guys take it for granted. well, except for the other emotionally intelligent one, but he is so much smarter than me and keeps his mouth shut...doesn't become the emotional mouthpiece for everyone else...keeps his opinions to himself. but then he also is able to trust and love with so little information. i used to think that was gullible. but i've come to really respect that about him. so i say little. so little gets said. and i have no idea where to stand in that. my guideposts are gone without conversation, without sharing, without the information that provides me.
so i pray. i pray lots. i prayed a rosary while i ran four miles yesterday. i pray a peace chaplet almost every night. i talk to god and mary more than i talk to real people most days. sometimes it feels holy. sometimes it feels peaceful. sometimes it feels crazy. sometimes it feel pointless. but i do it. because i have to have faith in something. and the faith i had in my family is very damaged right now...very fragile...and i'm pretty sure it would shatter and sound like tinkling glass if i challenged it too much and lost. so i will do what i can to protect it.
peace
