I'm definitely not militant about not taking drugs, I'll just generally go for the natural healing option if I think it's available, for my children as well as myself. But if someone were to offer me some very strong drugs right now to knock me out, which did no potential harm to my unborn child, I would glady take them. In fact, I'd pay alot of money for them. Sadly, they don't exist.
So. Here I am. Again. This is such familiar territory to me: the dark, quiet space downstairs in the middle of the night. I put the sunlamp on rather than the bright glare of the kitchen light (the sunlamp, as it's name would suggest, stores up light from the sun during the day and then sends off a dull orange glow at night) and make porridge. It's always too stodgy as I can't see what I'm doing really well, but there is something strangely comforting about stodgy porridge in the middle of the night.
Andy's back from Ghana now and it's amazing to have him home, but the only face I've been able to turn to him so far is one of weariness and frustration and not nearly enough smiles. Yesterday morning when I came downstairs after a long night, Maya and Lily shrieked 'Mummy!' over and over again as they clambered over me. On a 'normal' morning: the most heartwarming sound imaginable. On a 'bad' morning: too loud. Too piercing. Too discordant with my fragility.
And this is just it. I am leading a double life. That film, The double life of Veronique, I can't even remember exactly what it's about, but the title resonates deeply with me. I am leading a dual existence. I never know, and people around me never know, when I am going to turn sunny heads to them, or its darker counterpart of tails. The balance has definitely been tipped, for whatever reason, firmly in favour of tails over the past month. I think I manage to maintain an emotional equilibriumwhen the scales are tipped the other way, even if ever so slightly. But if I have more nights 'on' than 'off' during the course of a week, that's when reality, or what I'd always imagined to be my reality, becomes more blurred around the edges and my coping mechanisms start eroding.
So. What to do to help the double lives of Rebecca peacefully co-exist? Answers on a postcard please. Address:
Rebecca Narracott
Sleepyville
Somewhere in the middle of the night
TW1 SOS
Hun,
ReplyDeleteIf it's any small consolation, do know that there is so much beautiful, eloquent creativity in your middle-of-the-night rambles. I can't of course know what your weighty tiredness feels like from the inside, but from over here and down a few suburban roads, I am constantly astounded by how warm and kind and heart bulging you remain despite the elusiveness of your sleep. I think really that if you were totting up 8 hours a night it would put the rest of us at a huge disadvantage. It's a natural balancing mechanism - this way we all have a chance to catch up! As I said, I can only guess at the trapped hideousness of such deep and ongoing exhaustion - but it struck me how much I relate to your 'double life' musings. It is too familiar -that sense of wanting to be able to enjoy and completely adore one's child, in the moment, but being too stuck within oneself to be able to. No doubt every parent knows that place and is taken there by the shapes of their own patterned world. But your little ladies have way more than enough of the good warm stuff to get them through those instances when their mother is being a mere mortal! I know it can be annoyingly counter-productive to be given too many suggestions of supposedly helpful hints. But er, on the off chance that these might actually really be useful, have a look at the following. We love you Becca, with or without regular winks.
http://www.thework.com
http://www.ridhwan.org
http://www.conscious.tv
And best of all......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnT7pT6zCcA&feature=related
Thank you my love
ReplyDeletexxxxxx