And so today’s moment of happiness despite the news.
Sometimes I crack myself up.
I have a long, long history of sleep issues, meaning that usually, I don’t sleep. Insomnia has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. But all of that suddenly changed after Michael’s accident. I began to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I always set up a guided meditation on my phone before crawling into bed, but often now, I don’t even remember the first sentence.
I’ve begun to crave sleep. Before, I could take it or leave it. Now, it’s the highlight of my day. Or my night, I suppose.
Some developments have been a bit disturbing. I’ve begun sleepwalking again, which I haven’t done for years. Several times now, I’ve found myself at the head of the stairs, leading from the third floor to the second. I don’t remember what brought me there, what I was planning to do. So I simply turn around and go back to bed.
I’ve woken several times now in the night, opened my eyes, and believe that I see that my bed has been turned sideways. I literally see it that way, and I freak out, because I can’t imagine who or what would turn my bed sideways in the middle of the night while I was sleeping. The image remains until I get out of bed and stand up. Then I realize that all is normal…and I climb back in bed and go back to sleep.
Often, when I wake up, I turn toward my alarm clock to see what time it is, so I can figure out how much time I have left before I have to get up. But lately, when I look toward my alarm clock, I don’t see numbers. I see pictures. Often, they are of people I don’t recognize. I blink, rub my eyes, sometimes turn away and then turn back, and then the numbers are there. I do my calculation and then go back to sleep.
My dreams, which disappeared from January to June, from Michael’s accident until his death, are now back and are very, very vivid and realistic. Last night, I had one of those dreams which continue, even after I’ve awakened, taken a bathroom break and crawled back into bed. It’s like I’m clicking pause on the streaming screen, and then hitting play.
So in the dream, I was in Lake Geneva, with my son, Christopher, his wife Amber and my granddaughter, Grandgirl Maya Mae, my son Andy, and my daughter Olivia. We were running around the town, collecting Mario Brothers memorabilia (for those who don’t know, Mario Brothers are a many-game series on Nintendo and other Nintendo game systems). I just found a 12-foot tall stuffed Mario, which I slung over my shoulder, when Christopher, Amber, Maya, and Olivia decided it was time to go home. They ran out to their cars and left, leaving me and Andy behind, and neither of us remembered where I parked Barry, my Chrysler 300S. This led to our running fruitlessly through long, long hallways in a variety of buildings to try to find our way out to the car, me with the 12-foot Mario wrapped around my neck and shoulders. Andy, annoyingly, kept running ahead out of my sight, and of course, I would come to a hallway that split into several choices and I didn’t know which way he went. Eventually, I would find him again, usually sitting and chatting with someone while he waited for me to catch up. Then we’d start tearing through the hallways again.
This went on for HOURS. One long dream, all the way through.
We’d just found our way to a doorway, and I could see my car parked outside, when I began to wake up. I don’t know what woke me – it’s my day off today, so I didn’t have an alarm set. But while my eyes were still closed, I could see my car. We started to walk toward it and I said to Andy, “Well, at least I’ve gotten my exercise in for today.”
Then I opened my eyes, saw that I was still in bed, all that vigorous exercise only performed in my head and my sleep, and I burst into laughter.
It’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to wake up laughing.
(As I said, sometimes, I crack myself up.)
And yes, that helps. Despite. Anyway.
