Saturday, July 01, 2017

The Night Is Dark And Full of Terrors

I love a dark house after everyone has gone to sleep. 

Maybe it is just a love based on familiarity. For most of my life, I have been an insomniac or a night owl, almost always up later than my family. Wandering a house after dark, the ways to guide yourself through a space with only the light from the windows and that one kitchen light that's always left on are well known art forms for me. In long term relationships, when staying in their home or after moving in, there have always been nights like this. Bittersweet nights spent wandering someone else's space, just me and my ghosts and theirs.

Tonight is such a night, though not in the usual vein. Older now, with less insomnia and more things that make what sleep o can catch precious, i haven't done this thing in some time. But tonight i am in pain, sick in so many ways, and cannot abide the bed, or even sitting for very long. He would be with me if I asked. But he needs sleep too. There is also very little he can do for most of the pain. So i have left him to his sleep, however fitful it may seem. 

I like change. I grow restless without it. I will find something new to learn or try or to get trained in when i start to feel restless. But i also can get overwhelmed, perhaps more easily than others. New job, new relationship, moving, new childcare arrangement. All so quickly after a crisis. I am overwhelmed. I cannot cry properly, cathartically, when i need, from pains internal or external. Maybe after a life of solitary tears, i have just run out. 

I wish it was raining tonight as the poetess' words run through my head
but the rain 
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh 
Upon the glass and listen for reply, 
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain...

And yet, i am still soothed. Hydration and meds and movement finally seeming to have settled the worst of it. I am glad for this bonding time with this new dark house, where I am less lonely than i have ever been on my moonlit wanderings.