Mid-NPM Ramble #1 [The Heckler]

I'm awake right now because the dog woke me up. The dog woke me up because we didn't take her out recently. We didn't take her out recently because went to bed before midnight. And we went to bed before midnight because my hubby is tired.

I, however, was less tired because I was sick this morning and skipped church and therefore when the dog woke me up I'd only been asleep for about 45 minutes so I've just been putzing around the apartment trying to get tired again.

So I'll tell you a story.

It's 9 o'clock. Joey has gone to fetch us some dinner and left me at Ross. I need to buy a few things, like a bow tie and a sports bra. You know, normal stuff that people buy from discount stores at 9pm.

After half an hour of wandering and finding neither sports bra nor bow tie (thrilling, I know) I meander up to the checkout area. I have just one item in my cart--a shiny silver soap dish. I hate checking out with one random item but I sincerely like and need this soap dish. This soap dish will fit in that stupid little nook next to the faucet handle, and bars of soap will actually fit inside the dish, so even though I feel silly, there is no way I'm putting it back and abandoning the cart.

The only other people in the store are an Indian woman and her daughter, and they are already in line ahead of me. Mother is heckling the cashier about getting a 20% discount on a handful of items and the daughter is struggling to hold all the other items not yet on the counter.

While I wait in line I peruse the assortment of junk food. It's mostly jelly beans. I hate jelly beans. I'm hoping for a bag of those mini gummi bears (Yes, they are MINI gummi bears. They are tiny and delicious and freakin adorable.) but have no luck.

Meanwhile Joey and I are texting back and forth. He's asking why I'm taking so long, and I tell him about the Heckler and her daughter. He says that the husband/father is outside smoking a cigarette and uses an irritated emoji, and I laugh quietly. Joey is tired and cranky. He threatens to eat dinner without me in the car and I explain that the Heckler is about to leave, so he should watch the door to see this tiny little girl holding a bag twice as big as her filled with--who knows what.

Maybe they bought all the sports bras and bow ties.

The cashier greets me, I greet her, and I set my pretty soap dish on the counter, only to be interrupted by a jarring BE-E-EP, BE-E-EP, BE-E-EP. 

The Heckler turns around, looking furious that something has set off the alarms, and the Heckler's Daughter looks disheveled. I take away my soap dish just in time as they slam Santa's Bag of Toys (or bag of sports bras and bow ties) back on the counter, narrowly escaping soap-dish-death.

To avoid awkwardness I keep looking at the junk food while the Heckler continues heckling. There's a bag of regular-sized gummi bears and I quickly text Joey just as the Heckler and the Heckler's Daughter are leaving again.

"Do you want 4lbs of gummi bears?" I ask him.

I put the soap dish on the counter. The cashier apologizes for the delay, I dismiss her worries, and just as she's putting my receipt in the bag I check my phone one last time.

Joey's response: YES.

Another transaction is made as I purchase the gigantic bag of deliciousness.

Meanwhile, Joey has seen the Heckler's Daughter and the huge bag of whatever.

"THAT IS A CRAP TON OF CRAP," he texts me.

When I finally exit the store I see the Heckler's Husband putting out his cigarette. Their minivan is parked next to us, where my husband is blasting Murder Train. (A joke, for anyone who has ever watched How I Met Your Mother.)

I get one last text message: "!!!!!!!!!!!"

As he increases the volume I raise the bag gummi bears above my head in victory.

I may have no bow ties, no sports bras, no sleep, and no sanity.

But I will now have a handful of gummi bears and attempt to go back to bed.

Midnight & Mountains

I started writing at exactly midnight, and writing feels like climbing, with my arms and legs burning and my eyes stinging from the harsh wind. I want to stop and sleep. But I can't. 

I started climbing this mountain a week ago. I’ve been in the foothills all week and we are nearing the summit now. By Monday I’ll have reached the opposite edge after which I’ll freely tumble down. I’ll take a nap when I reach the bottom.

There is so much here to be said, and I would like to be brief, but you see… I still have this mountain to climb. I don’t get to stop climbing until 1:00am. It’s a decision I made on my own, without fully understanding what it would mean for me, but hear me out. I’m not crazy for doing it.

See, I’ve written about post-cancer life—and yes, I have decided to just call it “cancer” because that’s honestly what it was. Poison is poison, no matter what clothes it may be wearing. I've talked about the doctors appointments, the nonsense I have endured at their hands, the surprise biopsies and terrible responses to what I want to do with my life.

I haven’t written about the most recent and unexpected change in my life, however.

It’s not that I’ve been keeping it a secret. There are just so many details. So many words to be said. So many thoughts to express, emotions to explore. I am actually planning on writing a book about the experience, if things ever calm down for more than four days at a time. It will be all of the funniest things I'll ever say for the rest of my life. Probably.

Here is the not-secret-secret: I got a second job at a restaurant.

This has come with a multitude of complications, of course. It’s the same restaurant where my husband is a server. I work as a host, a job which is easy enough, but requires a lot of energy for a poor introvert like myself.

I am trying desperately to avoid telling you everything about the work I do. I have a multitude of hilarious stories, but they’ll have to wait for another time, because this is a serious post. 

Seriously, I mean it!

Not surprisingly, this job wears me out. My back stopped hurting after a few weeks but my feet still get sore—my right foot in particular is in constant pain because it “suffered trauma” once. (That’s doctor talk for “it broke.”) The hours are long, you don’t always get to eat or take a break, and even if you get yourself something to drink or bring a water bottle someone else will inevitably move your drink, or spill it, or toss it out because it “might get in the way.” (Goodbye, my beloved cup of coffee…)

What I didn’t expect that during these first days of each month, these days where I take a drug (see other blog posts for that excitement) that makes me hungry for odd foods (I am really craving pineapple right now), I would find myself in a state of compressed exhaustion and I would lose my ability to stay up late.

It's really too bad that I must stay up late.

On the weekends the restaurant is open until 11pm. I am often a “last guest closer", which means I have to stay in the restaurant until the last guest leaves. So if a family comes in at 10:59pm and they enjoy their meal until 12:27am, I don’t get to walk out the door until I have watched them leave first.

So, back to the drugs.

I have to take them at the same time every day. And I mean the that. The same. Exact. Time. 

This is not like an allergy pill, or even birth control, where you can take it 5 minutes or perhaps  an hour late and you’ll be fine. If I take this 5 minutes late, the entire cycle of pills is wasted. I won’t get to reset until the next month.

I actually took 2 months off from taking it just because I was so concerned about getting it wrong. Don’t you worry, my anxiety about this was not misguided!

When January came I started taking it again. I concluded, based on my work schedule, that I would take it and my antidepressant at 1am. These are the only two meds I take that require a schedule and so it’s easier to take them at the same time, rather than set extra alarms and carry drugs around with me all day and potentially lose them. I know I’ll be home by 1am and so this was the most logical solution I could come up with.

You get it now? You see that this was logical?

It was logical, I promise. I planned well, to the best of my knowledge. But little did I know that for the next three weeks I would NOT be a “last guest closer;" rather I would be home before 10pm, but I’ve already started taking the pills at 1am and it can’t be undone!

So here I am. Sitting. Waiting. Ready for bed, Wishing I was asleep. I have been in this state for three hours, and I'm getting so close.

It’s within my grasp now; I can see the mountain top. My eyelids are heavy, my breathing slow and even, I am warm and comfortable and totally prepared to plunge my pickaxe into the rock and rest for the night.

Thanksketching: Day 16

I am thankful for

endless dreams among

warm winter snuggles

with the blankets

covering my nose.

Thirty Thanks, Day 23: My Mind

I dreamed there was a consuming darkness. Even the sunlight was tainted by shadow. The world seemed faded and muted and dull--and yet, each negative sensation was more severe. All of the painful, confusing emotions that we typically try to keep at bay were enhanced and overwhelming. Thus, people found odd ways of putting their guard up. 

I went to a museum, dressed in all black leather, and felt at ease in my surroundings merely because I appeared sinister and untouchable. I wore awful heeled boots (definitely not real life anymore) and believed I could kill, if I wanted to. I felt that powerful, and that close to the edge. But the darkness seeped into even the indecipherable art in the museum. I knew I was looking at a sculpture, or a painting, but couldn't make out distinct colors or shapes. 

In search of something more engaging, I went to a mall. (Now we have definitely left Kansas.) I informed my husband and a friend (the same friend who visited me in real life last weekend) that I would be at the mall, and they should come pick me up. Once inside the enormous, gray shopping center I tried to find a suitable department to browse, but everything was separated by large doors and security agents. You couldn't look at baby clothes unless you were certifiably pregnant, or at formal dresses if you had no proof you would be attending a formal event, and the same went for any type of clothing or appliance or houseware. The agents would interrogate customers in order to let them through the doors and so I curled up in a shopping cart and took a nap. 

When I woke from my mall nap, there appeared before me a large rack of scarves. They were all brilliantly colored and had bright patterns. They were draped at all angles on the rack, calling me with their blues and reds and golds. I crawled out of the shopping cart and marveled at the scarves--the only truly colorful things I had yet found in this shadowed world. But each time I attempted to pull a scarf from the rack, it became caught. I could not have a single one, could not hold it or touch it or enjoy the fabric. 

Infuriated, I decided it was time to go home for dinner. We would order a pizza, because surely a pizza can't let you down in a shadowy place. I saw my husband and my friend approach the mall from a distance. It was extremely windy outside and my husband was carrying my purse, struggling against the coming storm. It would have been a funny sight except that he decided he would just meet me at home. My friend waved goodbye--he was heading back to his home on the train.

Once arriving at home my husband informed me that all pizza was now banned, and so we went to bed. I asked if our friend had made it home safely, and my husband looked at me like I was crazy. Apparently the friend was alright, but he had been in a train wreck, because the train had been carrying a large yacht. This overwhelmed me with sadness and despair and I wept, uncontrollably, inconsolably, for what seemed like years, until my husband started talking again. He said that all of this had happened a long time ago, and I had been in a coma, and while I was in the coma he had started helping out a woman with a baby. She was unmarried and needed to borrow our car on a regular basis. She had the car at that very moment.

Dazed but angry, I redressed in all of my powerful leather and my horrible boots, and went back to the mall. I wanted to get the car back, at least. When I returned to the mall I saw her immediately. She, too, was wearing all black leather. However, she was Latina, with long, dark, curly hair and gold hoop earrings--she pulled off the look much better than I did. Her eyes were sharp. She was pushing a stroller, and I knew there was a little girl sitting in it, but I could not tell what she looked like or if she was even alive. 

The woman intimidated me. I intended on confronting her but found myself incapable. I asked her where the car was and she said, "This way, another storm is coming." Her voice was hard and yet beautiful, her words pointed and haunting. We to the entrance of the mall and it started to rain. It came down in waves of water, relentless and violent. I stepped outside with an umbrella, which promptly broke. With my vision almost completely obscured I pulled my leather jacket over my head and we walked towards the car.

With every step the rain lessened. When we reached the car it had stopped and the ground was drying, but I noticed all the car doors were open--even the trunk and the hood. I suddenly realized the woman had not gone into my car, but had gone to another car next to it. Hers was white, and she put her child in the back. I also realized there was a green car pulled up behind mine. Initially I thought, "You've got to be kidding me! I can't back out with them there!" until someone started talking. 

Sitting in the car were two black men, wearing Harvard sweatshirts. They announced that they were taking my car, and one told the other to search the car for valuables. I told them I didn't have any, and the driver said, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I don't give a damn." A voice in my head somehow restrained me from telling them that the car wasn't worth much either, although it was definitely worth more than any 'valuables' inside. 

The woman drove away in her white car and I stood next to my black car, drenched and confused. All the doors were open and my life seemed to spill from it, pouring out of the seats and the little garbage bag and the blankets stored in the trunk. I felt defeated and broken from the inside out, like the shadowed world had taken advantage of me, had robbed me of my very soul, my only hope. I kept thinking that it simply didn't make sense, that I had so little--why would someone take from me when I practically had nothing to be taken? 

And so I told myself it wasn't real. I had an ounce of strength left and I used it to remind myself that none of it could be true, and I had to find what was true. 

I woke up breathless in the dark. Half-asleep, the sound of my own breathing and pounding heart immediately reminded me of the ocean. My senses slowly returned but I still felt terrified that all I had was gone. I listened carefully and found the sound of my dog snoring on the floor. I could not regain awareness, did not know where I was, could not find my husband. A few minutes of breathing deeply finally allowed me to roll over and find his warm back.

It was a nightmare. None of it was real.

I know I've mentioned before how lifelike my dreams are. I am easily convinced of their truth, in the beginning. I am carried away by the excitement of a new world, a sleepy discovery. This is why my nightmares are never short-lived. They carry on like a Charles Dickens novel, and you keep waiting for the happy ending, except that in this case they never come. The orphan does not find their family, or come into riches, or marry their true love. And so rather than stay trapped, I keep exploring until I can escape.

And so I am thankful for my mind.  It is a gift, surely, to be able to dream up such magnificent, detailed stories. I have traveled the world and flown the skies and had the desires of my heart, all without leaving the comfort of my bed. But when I am in danger, there is no real suffering. My mind has learned, after all these years of dreaming, to defend itself against the lies of a nightmare. It has learned to find a way out before my heart believes it is broken, before all the misery of the world crushes me in my sleep. It finds a way back to what is true.

I wasn't going to write a blog for the 23rd by itself. It was a long day and so I was going to pair it up with the 24th. But I went to sleep filled with anxiety, apparently. And I had this nightmare. So I was all shaken up. I tried reading the Psalms... but I couldn't resist the need to write it all down.

So perhaps this post is a little odd, considering the others I've done this month. But I truly am thankful not to be trapped in my nightmares.

Thanks, mind. You're incredible. Scary, but incredible.

Thirty Thanks, Day 4: Sleep

Le sleep space.

There is nothing special about being thankful for sleep. It's something everyone needs, and usually they find a way to have it, so it's not something I often think about being grateful for. It's kind of like free coffee at work: you take it for granted, until it's gone. You barely notice how much you appreciate its presence but when it's missing you can't think about anything else. (I'm not saying this from personal experience. I usually partake of the free coffee at work but once a week.)

I've personally gone through many eras of restless sleep. I couldn't tell you the reason behind most these times. It could have been stress, or an irregular sleep schedule, or allergies. (We can blame much of it on stress, probably, or the chaos of college life.) I don't know. But I do know that I missed good sleep immensely. And, of course, there's that tragically desperate period between when you head hits the below and finally falling asleep. That time when you perpetually glance at the clock, calculating how many hours of sleep you would get if you fell asleep right now. 

I haven't done this recently, and I'm grateful. But there was a period of time when this happened all the time, mostly due to the difference in how I sleep, and how my husband sleeps. In general, men fall asleep much faster than women. My boss and I once discussed how men say they "shut off" their brains at night, and that's all we need to do to fall asleep. This is far from realistic for women, but somehow men manage it every night. When the hubby and I go to sleep, he goes to sleep. He shuts his eyes, his legs and hands twitch, there's usually a loud noise (a snort or cough) and then he's out. It takes less than two minutes. For me, I have to lay there, and think about something soothing.

Yeah, that's right. I have to think about something to fall asleep. I usually imagine a paintbrush covered with green paint, held by an invisible hand painting beautiful vines and leaves. I also think about rivers, and sunsets. Pretty things. You know, because I'm a woman. ;)

My real problem is that I'm a very light sleeper. It doesn't require a lot of noise to wake me up. But once I'm awake, it's even harder to fall back asleep. This is why even on my days off I wait to go to bed until Joey comes home because if he wakes me up when he comes in, I will be awake for another several hours.

But, as I said, this hasn't been an issue recently. Our sleep schedules are synchronized. Our work schedules allow for decent amounts of sleep and rest and relaxation.  There is nothing quite like feeling well-rested. Plus, one of my favorite things about sleep is dreaming. My dreams are like movies, but I've probably said that before. They have a plot with a beginning, a middle, and an ending. And I remember most of them, although most people forget most of their dreams approximately 10 minutes after they wake up.

I would also like to mention, as a final note, that having a sleep space is really important. You spend a third of your life sleeping, so it should be enjoyable. Comfy pillows, warm blankets, soft lightning (see photo above for inspiration!) I get to go buy a brand new comforter next week (so far all of the blankets we've had since we got married have been from thrift stores) and I'm so excited, it's practically all I think about. Just sayin.' Sleep space is vital. 

I am so incredibly thankful for sleep. So, thanks sleep. I couldn't live without you. Literally.

(Did you know that if you avoid sleep for 10 consecutive days, you'll DIE?)