Day 272
There are times when I’d like not to be a night owl. Tonight is one of them. I’m tired. It’s nearly 4 a.m. and I am still up and awake and doing things.
If I were a vampire I’d be eating dinner right about now … or at least a pre-bedtime snack!
But, I’m here … at my computer … conversing with a friend in Canada who also cannot sleep. I have been thinking about her so much these past few days. She has a better reason than I do for being up at this ungodly hour. Mine is because I’ve been cleaning and painting and working all day and I am just finishing up everything and am on my 4th or 5th wind and my brain just won’t shut down.
Her reason is that she had her first of several chemo infusions yesterday and the side effects are making her unable to sleep and she is uncomfortable and her mind and heart are racing.
She wins.
Cancer sucks.
And it sucks on many levels, one being that I don’t like going to bed because there are days still when I wake up with that tsunami of grief. It washes over me and I am never sure just why but it still happens. Maybe because I am such a vivid dreamer. I dream of Tim a LOT and when I wake up I am so disappointed that it was only a dream. And then the tsunami hits … or not. It strikes at random … so, I never know when it’s going to get me.
It also washes over me at other times … in the grocery store, if I see a couple holding hands, hear some song on the radio, tell someone about him … still after all this time.
I keep thinking maybe I’ll wake up one day and “things” will be different … that that heartache will be gone and that I won’t cry when I look at Black Walnut ice cream. But maybe that day will never come.
And maybe I’m a night owl because I don’t like going to bed alone. Not that I have been ALONE with all these animals that worm their way up onto the bed and under the covers … it is fewer than before, though. Now it’s just Gertie and Oscar. Before I had Dori and Yosh AND Mobes! Good thing I had a king-sized mattress back then when the whole menagerie joined me. Every night was a pajama party!
Anyway … night owls. My friend, Katie, and I are owlet buds. We are both up way too late at night … or I am up and she wakes up and then can’t fall back asleep. We seem to be up at the same time most nights, though. Sadly. At least when I finally fall asleep I’m down for the count. Wild horses could drag me through a desert and I’d still be sleeping!
In any case … tonight’s night owlness is due to activity and thinking. Thinking how happy I am to be able to see Ted tomorrow and how sad I am that my dear friend has to go through what she is facing. The highs and lows of life … sometimes it just seems so unfair.
I know we can’t become what we need by remaining what we are … and sometimes adversity is the only way to get us to a different point in our lives … but it doesn’t mean I have to like it.
I have that quote taped to my computer monitor. Must have been said by some wise old owl. And as for this old owl – I’m not as wise as just tired.