When they tell you grief touches every part of your life, they aren’t kidding. I’m not sure who they are. Maybe experts on widespread suckiness of life. That sounds about right. Because this latest iteration of grief sucks in its own special way.
Almost three hours of sleep overnight, and I’m counting it as a win?
Yes. Today, I am counting it as a win. I spent a couple of hours in a pool. Still, I’m not optimistic about my sleep prospects. I’m entirely too familiar with the middle-of-the-night sounds in this part of town. Coyotes are busy this week and they have no regard for bedtimes. Of course, neither does my body or my mind, so I guess I’ll hang out with the howlers and the yippers.
Last week, I went to the pool five days in a row. It felt good. I thought maybe I could exhaust my body and I’d be able to sleep. To an extent, that wish came true for a few days; I could get a couple hours of good sleep, but I’d still be awake at 2:00 or 3:00 or 4:00. Over the weekend, the insomnia only worsened.
So night after night, I hope for good sleep. I try to wear myself out, trick myself into believing sleep is the only option. And night after night, I pass the hours with the coyotes’ serenade. As the minutes tick-tock their way into hours, I start to dread the day ahead. How can I be productive, how can I pass for functional or intelligent, when I slept for two hours? One hour?
I can’t. I can barely make sentences, and I’m an English teacher. We like sentences.
That lack of sleep makes me teary and weak. On one hour of sleep, I feel ill. On one hour of sleep, I can’t go to the pool. By late afternoon, I can’t safely drive. I need a break. I need a damn nap.
With every aspect of my life wielding its grief-sharpened blade–with my soul shredded by those blades and my body on the brink of dysfunction–I need the respite of sleep. Instead, my mind tortures me with its own weapons. I relive events I didn’t witness, flinch at sounds I didn’t hear. I can picture Cooper’s confident stride as he carries his shotgun through the cemetery. He knew where he was headed–that cedar he liked. I can hear the blast. I wonder if the neighbor heard the shot. My mind fills in the gaps and creates a story of that day.
Some nights, an entire childhood plays on rerun; other nights, it’s just last season. Highlights. Lowlights. I hold the remote. I can pause, back up, watch again. Analyze. Over analyze. Not sleep. As those reruns play in my mind, I wonder what I missed. Did a decision I made when Cooper was in middle school have a butterfly effect? Unlike the TV of my youth, there’s no national anthem followed by a test pattern. Nope. The mind TV is 24 hours of non-stop questions, blame, doubt and guilt.
These wide-awake nights are torture. They are filled with all the things I can process, at least a little, in the daylight. In the daylight, I know and can tell you how hard we tried to help Cooper–how hard he tried to help himself. That doesn’t mean daylight hours are easy. At 3:00 p.m. today, I cried like it was my job. I answered difficult questions and put into words things I don’t often say aloud. I answered a sincere “How are you?” with an equally sincere “I’m so far from okay.” I’m so very sad, but I’m honest in my sadness. I’m trying to face my sadness.
Sad is my baseline, but the darkest, twistiest hours are the hours I should be asleep. In the daylight, there are fewer demons. In the daylight, I suspect Blame is hiding somewhere, taking a nap, and gearing up for another big night with his pals Questions, Doubts, Bad Imagination, and Guilt. Jerks. I haven’t found the magic number of pool hours to keep those bad dudes at bay.
Woods Writes 