Olivia professionally reacts to her 27th page for the weekend, mostly from silly, overparenting mothers.written 11-25-08
last night was a “duze-ee”. we attempted to go to bed early and for once in a rarity, we did. lights out at 10:48 . . . plenty of time for some good rest. but we couldn’t sleep. we rolled around some, tried to breathe slowly and evenly, pinched our eyes shut . . . but Olivia took her turn with a drippy throat and regular coughs like clockwork, marking the passing minutes abruptly with mini shock waves throughout the bed. finally I begin to doze off, just in time to hear Maggie coughing and doing her half-wail, not so much that she is in desperate straits as just lonely or sad. I sigh and throw on my heavy bathrobe – the hallway is always such an ice house experience. I get Maggie settled and then come back to bed to restart the relaxing process that will hopefully again lead towards subconscious sleep.
but Olivia’s anxiety demons are out in full force tonight and will not take no for an answer. Olivia rants angrily about how unfair it is not to be able to sleep when exhausted. we’ve been pinching our eyes shut for an hour. I try every trick in the book. I fight fire with fire, raise the volume of my voice for intimidating effect, and rant about being ranted against. the demons multiply. Olivia moans and groans about how she will become a complete medical professional failure, how the patients and their demands mount up like a tsunami rushing toward her in full force, and she is the sole mud-and-thatch hut right on the edge of the beach – IMMINENT DESTRUCTION! the demons scream, IMMINENT DESTRUCTION!
Realizing the demons are beyond intimidation I switch tactics. I try rationalization, despite the fact that it has never worked in my marriage. I am met with more dire pronouncements of fatality and complete hopelessness. I finally give my wife three choices: 1 leave the bed and go do some journaling, have it out on paper, 2 lay there quietly in bed and accept that fact that she might soon self-destruct, or 3 allow me to read to her. After some whining and resistance (she wants to keep fighting the demons) she allows me to read to her.
at 1 a.m. I read Klinkenborg, chapters about farming and fathers and the subtle motivations that drive us and identify us to ourselves. He thinks that our physical surroundings depict precisely who we are inside, we cannot hide. He says that in our rebellion we think that we can choose our influences, but later we realize that they are the ones who choose us. I read for some time, periodically checking Olivia’s face for any sign of relaxation. She continues to look like she is struggling for mental air, her skin a bit gray – but at least she is quiet while I read. at one point she has the covers pulled over her head. I secretly laugh. Eventually we decide to try sleeping again. It doesn’t work.
In a final attempt – I bring up funny memories from our honeymoon; the time I got snorted on by a horse, the time we couldn’t find anything to eat except day-old dried-out egg sandwiches and killer-fire Doritos. She chuckles some and I think that we might be gaining ground. I stroke her hair into the night and listen carefully for her breathing to change. It does ever so slightly and I think I feel her toe twitch, a sign that her muscles are being handed over to the autonomic system – I wait and wait, but her breathing again becomes short, and she swallows several times. My best attempts have come short, she continues to cough and toss and turn.
I doze briefly and then Maggie is awake. I must have scared a demon off of Olivia that attacked Maggie. Usually all that Maggie requires is one or two Nuk-reinsertions or some blankie-rearranging, but this time she is audibly upset. She has a grievance and wants to discuss it with me in loud tones. I listen to what she has to say, patiently reinserting the Nuk between her dogmatic reiterations of her 5 month woes and her endless coughing. She sounds like her lungs are under water. I consider giving her formula but it is only 3:30 in the morning, not the time or the place in which to begin a nice, comfy tradition that will be expected again tomorrow morning. So I opt instead to stand there for fifteen minutes and coax Maggie back to sleep. I think about how similar it was trying to coax Olivia to sleep, only the methods vary.
Dealing with sleep deprivation is probably one of the least anticipated skills I’ve had to learn since becoming a parent. I don’t know if skill is the right word . . . it’s really a new form of reality – seeing the world through half-open eyes maybe. Not that you see less things, but you see different things. Sleep is such a healing experience, one that I miss. Without it there are more demons, and they are harder to deal with. But music sounds sweeter and I am for once motivated to get up at 6:30 in the morning for nothing else but to write out a silly description of it. Surely there is a place for chaos and demons to help build us into better people. We must believe this or else we would have to surrender to it and them. We must always muster the creative instinct along with the will to live and go on. There is always a new sun on the morrow, regardless of how much we have or have not slept.
but Olivia’s anxiety demons are out in full force tonight and will not take no for an answer. Olivia rants angrily about how unfair it is not to be able to sleep when exhausted. we’ve been pinching our eyes shut for an hour. I try every trick in the book. I fight fire with fire, raise the volume of my voice for intimidating effect, and rant about being ranted against. the demons multiply. Olivia moans and groans about how she will become a complete medical professional failure, how the patients and their demands mount up like a tsunami rushing toward her in full force, and she is the sole mud-and-thatch hut right on the edge of the beach – IMMINENT DESTRUCTION! the demons scream, IMMINENT DESTRUCTION!
Realizing the demons are beyond intimidation I switch tactics. I try rationalization, despite the fact that it has never worked in my marriage. I am met with more dire pronouncements of fatality and complete hopelessness. I finally give my wife three choices: 1 leave the bed and go do some journaling, have it out on paper, 2 lay there quietly in bed and accept that fact that she might soon self-destruct, or 3 allow me to read to her. After some whining and resistance (she wants to keep fighting the demons) she allows me to read to her.
at 1 a.m. I read Klinkenborg, chapters about farming and fathers and the subtle motivations that drive us and identify us to ourselves. He thinks that our physical surroundings depict precisely who we are inside, we cannot hide. He says that in our rebellion we think that we can choose our influences, but later we realize that they are the ones who choose us. I read for some time, periodically checking Olivia’s face for any sign of relaxation. She continues to look like she is struggling for mental air, her skin a bit gray – but at least she is quiet while I read. at one point she has the covers pulled over her head. I secretly laugh. Eventually we decide to try sleeping again. It doesn’t work.
In a final attempt – I bring up funny memories from our honeymoon; the time I got snorted on by a horse, the time we couldn’t find anything to eat except day-old dried-out egg sandwiches and killer-fire Doritos. She chuckles some and I think that we might be gaining ground. I stroke her hair into the night and listen carefully for her breathing to change. It does ever so slightly and I think I feel her toe twitch, a sign that her muscles are being handed over to the autonomic system – I wait and wait, but her breathing again becomes short, and she swallows several times. My best attempts have come short, she continues to cough and toss and turn.
I doze briefly and then Maggie is awake. I must have scared a demon off of Olivia that attacked Maggie. Usually all that Maggie requires is one or two Nuk-reinsertions or some blankie-rearranging, but this time she is audibly upset. She has a grievance and wants to discuss it with me in loud tones. I listen to what she has to say, patiently reinserting the Nuk between her dogmatic reiterations of her 5 month woes and her endless coughing. She sounds like her lungs are under water. I consider giving her formula but it is only 3:30 in the morning, not the time or the place in which to begin a nice, comfy tradition that will be expected again tomorrow morning. So I opt instead to stand there for fifteen minutes and coax Maggie back to sleep. I think about how similar it was trying to coax Olivia to sleep, only the methods vary.
Dealing with sleep deprivation is probably one of the least anticipated skills I’ve had to learn since becoming a parent. I don’t know if skill is the right word . . . it’s really a new form of reality – seeing the world through half-open eyes maybe. Not that you see less things, but you see different things. Sleep is such a healing experience, one that I miss. Without it there are more demons, and they are harder to deal with. But music sounds sweeter and I am for once motivated to get up at 6:30 in the morning for nothing else but to write out a silly description of it. Surely there is a place for chaos and demons to help build us into better people. We must believe this or else we would have to surrender to it and them. We must always muster the creative instinct along with the will to live and go on. There is always a new sun on the morrow, regardless of how much we have or have not slept.
3 comments:
great picture & beautifully written. i may have to coax darren into reading to me over the phone from work tonight as i am anxiously (make that ANXIOUSLY) awaiting an interview. i'm hoping that it doesn't get to the nuk or formula stage.
Hey there. Just checked my findusfaithful account and noticed you started a blog. Great work, man. That sleep deprivation thing is quite the journey. Great pictures too. We need to visit sometime. RICH
when we are in the desert we cannot se any water ,else we're only on the edge of the desert ,not in it! nevertheless the oasis is coming up! keep on truckin' shalom to you and yours..........uncle al l
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