It’s 5 a.m. and I am awake for no reason at all.
God is playing tricks with me lately. I used to only be up at this ungodly hour when my daughter woke me up. Lately, she sleeps for the most part, and I’m wide awake.
Some early mornings, I read or watch TV. Yesterday, I did yoga. Today, I write.
I know it’s been awhile. I had promised myself I would write more, and I wrote less.
I write every single work day, all day, for a living. I write about politics, government, finance, taxes. None of that is as difficult as writing about my heart.
Maybe I write smaller posts more often. I miss writing. I also dread it. It is intense therapy, the kind that leaves you exhausted afterwards.
But I’ve fallen off the wagon, and too much time has passed. My days are chaotic. I think about writing all the time. I’m annoyed with myself for not doing it more often. I miss it. I probably need it.
Today I sit at the kitchen table, lights off, with a cup of coffee and my laptop. I started out in the dark. But each time I look up, the sky gets a little lighter.
It’s so quiet. The quiet annoys me and pacifies me and mystifies me at the same time. It annoys me when I wake and fail to fall back to sleep. When I lie in bed and listen to my husband’s snores and try to figure out all the noises in the house. I wish I wasn’t awake right now. But then I probably wouldn’t be writing. Quiet is not something I have nearly enough of. And writing is something I wish I did more.
Yesterday, a Saturday, my daughter happily spent the day with her teacher. I went to the movies by myself, by choice. My husband took my son and his daughter to another movie, at another theater.
Twenty years ago, I never would have gone to a movie by myself. Now it’s a rare treasure of a way to spend an afternoon. I watch what I want, I sit where I want to sit. Nobody talks to me, and I lose myself in the movie.
After the movies I went shopping a little bit. I didn’t really need anything. But walking around a store alone is a far different experience walking around a store when I have my daughter in tow. Not better. Different.
My daughter has a love-hate relationship with shopping. She loves to get out of the house. She loves to go places. She needs to be entertained. When she’s bored she starts crying and demanding a new scenery. So I try to entertain her as I attempt to get everything I came for. I try to engage her and get her to walk and pick things off the shelf. When that fails I sing with her as I push her in a special-needs wagon. I sway to music and make funny faces to her. I tickle her. I massage her back. I can only imagine how I look and sound (not a great voice). I don’t care. Her smile is all I care about.
Later, when her teacher dropped her off at home around dinnertime, I can see that she is in need of a meltdown. I have come to better grips with her meltdowns. I think I am better at not letting them get the best of me.
They come almost daily, around the same time, late afternoon/early evening. I have come to understand that this is just her way of blowing off steam. She has a busy day too. School keeps her going every minute. She comes home and lets it all out.
They also come after a transition, often after she spends the weekend at her dad’s house. Transitioning back home takes her a bit.
More often that not, I find I can calm her by just lying down next to her and rubbing her back or her arms. The most beautiful thing I have right now is the solace I know I give her when she is lying in my arms.
Until recently, Bree rarely came in the living room to relax while we were in there watching TV. She sat in her spot at the kitchen table — kinda the spot where I sit right now. But lately, just about nightly, when I am on the recliner, she will come over and sit between my legs, resting the back of her head on my chest as she watches her videos. I wrap my arms around her and breathe it in.
So many years, she would not do this. Now she is taller and bigger than me. But she needs me. She will never outgrow my hugs or my lap.
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