I really love this time of night. It’s late, and I’m sleepy, but now is when my creative juices flow, when ideas come to mind and the words and creations flow from my fingertips. This time an hour ago I was in bed, but I couldn’t sleep. Despite the fact that warmth cocooned all around me – from my husband beside me to the flannel sheets wrapped around me to the cat curled around my head, purring contentedly. Despite the gentle whirring of the ceiling fan (I like white noise). That should have been enough to lull me to sleep. But it wasn’t. Physically I could feel myself being drawn down into the welcoming, soothing blackness that is sleep (for me, anyway), but mentally my mind was in overdrive.
So, here I am, curled up in the chair in the living room, laptop in my lap, the other cat at my feet. I’m enjoying the comforting sounds of the night… the rain pattering against the windows, the cars sloshing by every little bit, the hum and barely audible clinks and clicks of the refrigerator. It’s peaceful, right now. But then again, the lights are off. Except for the glow of my laptop illuminating me and the wall behind me, the living room is enveloped in darkness. And that’s a good thing, I think. The chaos of it right now (boxes everywhere, toys strewn about, papers for the house, the appliances, the bills, etc., scattered all over the table) would probably set my nerves on edge.
I’m weary. I’m weary of the ups and downs that life has been throwing at me for the last year. I can’t take much more of the adrenaline and anxiety that courses through me as I tackle and handle one obstacle or another, shoulder another burden, try to balance and shift the ones I’m already carrying…
Before falling asleep, Dan laughingly recalled an incident that happened the night before we went to the hospital to have Ryan. He was in my mother’s living room, and I was in the bathroom. As I was sitting there, taking care of business and all that, I happened to glance down at my thigh. A tick had latched itself onto and buried itself into my thigh. Now, under normal circumstances, I would have been screaming bloody murder, at the least. But, no. I sighed. I finished up, washed my hands, then hobbled into the living room (I didn’t bother pulling up my pants). “Please get it out”, I told Daniel through gritted teeth. “Now.”
He was shocked that I wasn’t jumping around and screaming like a lunatic. But I couldn’t. I was just so drained from the stress of looking for another house, the stress of bills piling up and us making stupid mistakes and not being able to handle them (looking back, we’ve come so far from then in such a short time…), the stress of waiting for this house that wasn’t finished when it was supposed to be, the fights between him and I, fights that were petty and stupid and caused by our other stresses but fights nevertheless, and then… finding out I had to have a c-section. Hinging my hopes on an external version that failed. Praying that doing pelvic rocks and turning handstands in a swimming pool and playing soothing music down by my pubic bone or obnoxious music by my chest would lure/drive Ryan down to where he needed to be. Nerves stretched so taut… just wanting to close my eyes and wake up to next year when everything was all over, the dust was settled…
And you know what? This past January, the dust did start to settle. We had finished decorating Ryan’s room. We had finally settled on curtains for Alyssa’s room. We had hung curtains in the living room and dining room right before Christmas. We were discussing how we wanted to fix up the yard in the spring. And then… the eviction notice. There goes the dust, swirling around and around and around, making me dizzy and sick of it all…
Here we are. Just nine days from moving day. We’re okay. I have to keep repeating that to myself because I can’t quite believe it. We’re okay. All of our bills are paid and current. We have food in the house. We have cleaning supplies. We have little bits of this and that to occupy ourselves with. We have the house. We have utilities. The water will be turned on this coming Monday. The propane, refrigerator and stove will be brought in on Tuesday. The washer and dryer will be brought in on Wednesday. And then… moving day. Then it’s just a matter of coming back here and doing some last minute cleaning, and turning in the keys. And we’ll be done.
Then it’s time to focus our attentions on our new home. Time to unpack, to get rid of the boxes. To put things away, finding all the right spots for them, arrange and rearrange the living room until we’re satisfied. Daydream about what color we’ll paint the living room and what kind of border we’ll put in the kitchen and what kind of ceiling fans would work for the bedrooms and where to put towel racks in the bathroom. Bland, mundane house stuff. But bland and mundane sounds so good to me right now. Bland and mundane is much better than uncertainty and anxiety.
We’re so close to being over with all of this…
I can’t wait.
Hi Jenn,
Great post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings with us, it’s actually quite refreshing.
Life DOES have it’s ups and downs, there’s nothing you can do about it. But just hang in there a bit longer. Soon you’ll be in your new house and things will start to settle down. They say moving house is the next most stressful thing after dealing with death and having a kid. But it will all be over soon, just hang in a bit longer!
Hi Jenn,
Great post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and feelings with us, it’s actually quite refreshing.
Life DOES have it’s ups and downs, there’s nothing you can do about it. But just hang in there a bit longer. Soon you’ll be in your new house and things will start to settle down. They say moving house is the next most stressful thing after dealing with death and having a kid. But it will all be over soon, just hang in a bit longer!
I keep thinking the same thing, just a little bit longer and it’ll all be over. My house is closing on Thursday, stress stress stress stress.