Iced Tea Chat: Night Watches

 

Hello dears.  Have a nice tinkling glass of icy tea...or water, with lemon.  I even have lovely sprigs of mint we can snip and wash to use.  We can sit outdoors, if you'd like.

I've been having a devil of a time lately.  My head feels stuffed full and my mind races.  At night I can't sleep.  I've seen many and many a Nightwatch come and go.  I am weary as can be, but it's not all physical.  I'm feeling mental and emotional fatigue, too.

Night Watches are nothing new to me.  I've spent years and years with sleeping issues that come and go.  It's the rest of it, just now, that is so distressing to me.  It's the mental merry go round and the emotional weariness that really adds the weight to the physical tiredness.

This all began a few weeks ago.  I have been feeling a bit like a hamster on a wheel, going round and round and getting nowhere.  I want to do more.  More things about the house.  More study.  More hobbies.  More in too many areas and there is a 3-year-old who simply doesn't understand that Gramma might possibly just not be the only one who can change his pull up, bathe him, change his clothes, fix his juice, get his toy, kiss his boo boo, find his channel on TV.  Mind you it's solely his idea that only Gramma can do these things, the other adults fight him tooth and nail trying to get him to let them help.  And we are all encouraging him to be a little more independent in some things.

I'm not complaining over my daily work.  Not at all.  I truly and sincerely know that work is work is work.  Housework and yard work are both just necessities of life.  I understand it.  Got that.

One night when I finally went to sleep, I had one of those ridiculously frustrating dreams.  In the dream, we were about to face a massive snowstorm.  I personally was responsible for making sure that everything was in place for riding out the storm, but I discovered that there was also an expectation of robbers.  

So here I was already dealing with gathering food supplies and water, and ensuring my household was taken care of and I also had to go about the house and make sure that all exterior doors were locked.  That's when I discovered that I lived in a vastly huge multi-story home with people living in apartment sized rooms that I was completely unaware lived in my house.  

Back to gather food for the masses only to remember another door was unlocked and needed to be secured.  Arguments ensued with neighbors as I tried to gain access to the house from the outside to ensure those doors were locked, family members happily walked in and out of the house borrowing items I was trying to stock or distracting me from my duties with other demands.  The time for the storm to begin was drawing closer and closer... I was so tense when I woke that I felt sore.

I realized that dream was all about my life.  I have too much on my plate, too many bases to cover.  I feel I am the only one doing a thing to cover all the bases.  The truth is I do the bulk of things.  It's fact.  I feel very vulnerable and in need of protection.  But I don't know how to do it all.  I just don't.  And as I told Katie months ago when she wailed out, "I can't do it all!", nor can I.  I'm not meant to.  

It all began to unravel earlier in the week when we did a longer than usual week and weekend with Caleb.  Late nights, and busy weekend added.  John and I didn't get our sanity saver time.  There was good reason for it, but we sorely needed it all the same.   The time we had for Memorial Day was taken up with entertaining Mama for her birthday.  Not complaining over that either.  I'm glad she's lived as long as she has and hope to celebrate her birthday again.   She turned 86.

Tuesday, I put in a long, very hard day.  A family member stopped by and in the course of conversation let us know how much it was resented that we'd failed them 5 years ago.  Then went on to vent frustration at our current lack of doing things as they thought we ought over the past year.  I flung my hands up in the air and said, "I don't want to talk about it any further!"  I choked over my lunch, trying to swallow the lump in my throat.  All I wanted to do was put my head down and weep like a baby.  

However, duties demanded I move on.   Katie had to work late.  It's been a slower month and having to stay late is a good thing if it means sales.  We went to Mama's late.  John insisted on going with me and I was both glad and sad, if you can understand that.  I felt the desperate need for quiet and some alone time.  At the same time, I dreaded that drive over and back again.  

Our reason for going over was to deal with an issue that required printing out of information Mama needed to send in order to prove her identity with a financial entity.  It was something necessary that she'd already attempted to handle on her own and had to re-do.  I helped her get it together, added in copies I'd made for her and took it to mail.

We left to return home and I made an innocent enough suggestion that we pick up a treat.  John has got to the point where any decision is too much.  I made a suggestion of where we could stop.  I don't know what he'd heard but it wasn't what I suggested. I began to explain that he'd misheard, and we had an argument.  A much bigger argument than was necessary.  I know full well he too was hurting from the comments made that noon.  He'd talked about it all the way over to Mama's. 

Having words with him was the last straw that day.  I was deeply depleted, hurt, and angry.   I could have screamed and ranted but I didn't.   I did what all women do at some point, I resorted to total silence.  It was a tense drive home.  When we got home, I went to our room, shut the door and went to bed.  I was, as my grandson so often likes to say, "DONE!"

Wednesday, another hard day.  I had not slept well for the third night in a row and was testy as could be.  I found each time I moved that I either had a child directly behind me or found him messing in something that he was not to supposed to.  He got fussed at quite a bit, John came out to add in his three cents worth.   I got madder and madder at myself and John both for being so ill tempered overall.  John and I had more words.  After I'd choked down another miserable lunch, I went back outdoors to chuck stuff from the shed to vent my anger.  It was too much work on top of the second morning of yard work and I paid dearly for it with aching limbs, a pulled muscle in my back and a pounding head.  Another evening of silence in the home.  Not nearly enough sleep once again.

Thursday, we went to John's appointment and took Caleb to the play park.  The two guys were both happy.  Grumpy Gramma did her best to let everyone be, but the noise level inside the car was stupidly high.  John sang and ticked, ticked, ticked musical beats.  Caleb was determined to shout him down singing his own songs. I felt my nerves unraveling.    I put up with all I could for miles and miles and finally said to them both, "STOP!"     Frustration began mounting over a number of things.  

That evening, I went to bed, but not to sleep.  I watched You Tube shorts, because for some reason just now the creators I follow are not producing videos.  A short I watched disturbed me on a deep, deep level.  I have said I am sensitive.  It makes me sound like a complete wimp or self-absorbed, but there are subjects that I simply cannot handle, and this dealt with one I find particularly difficult.   Perhaps because I have dealt with it personally and I still get the same deep down sick feeling I did at the time I faced it.  I was horrified and more horrified as the video went on, though it wasn't more than a few seconds of it and I was desperately trying to shut it off.  Too late.  I heard enough to completely end any hope of sleeping.

 I'd been far better off to put on music, lay the phone down and at least enjoyed that, but I chose the videos to drown out the talk in my mind.  

And then came the dream once I'd finally gone off to sleep.  So went the week.  On and on, grinding me into the ground.

Friday, after a long day of working hard putting our house in order, the weight of the week still pushing me down hard, I felt like I simply couldn't go on.  And that made me do something I so seldom do.  I said, "No," to a request.  Oh, there were repercussions, but I was, at that point, too darn weary to care.

John and I went out of the house after supper and rode along the back roads to the other dump, the one not near our home and dropped off trash.  There was a tractor puttering slowly along the field, plowing the soil.  As we drove along the roads, I looked over acres and acres of wheat or newly plowed land between, cows grazing in pastures, a deer standing stock still at the edge of the road, dappled light on tree trunks in the wood.  The deep peace of the enduring land soothed my jangled nerves, calmed the frantic merry go round of thoughts and the tension slipped off my shoulders like a heavy burden that I'd suddenly let go.

I am reminded yet again that I am not capable of doing it all, regardless of how pressured I feel to do so.  I am not solely responsible for everyone's happiness, nor livelihood.  I am not the solution to anyone's problems or hurts.  I cannot fix what happened in the past simply because the person who was hurt didn't understand the idea behind the why then and they've not grown an inch towards understanding in the intervening years.   

John wears trouble in much the same way I do.  That's why we fight.  We see that we've failed in certain ways and we both hate that we have.  We fail Caleb, we fail one another, then we discover we've failed others.  So, we quarrel over the most foolish things, things that have nothing to do with what's upset us and then regret arguing which makes us even more testy with one another.   I acknowledge that part of the issue is that he's man and I'm woman and most of you know just what I mean.  There are things that are just incomprehensible to the opposite sex.  Add in that we both have hearing issues, but John, being male also has listening issues.  Again, if you know, you know.

I've asked myself what I can do better this week.  I can apologize to the person who is hurt and forgo the long explanation of the why that won't be understood.  So much simpler to say, "I'm sorry."

I can find my journal and write and write until my head is empty.  Why on earth did I feel the need to put it where I couldn't find it?!  

I can take myself off to bed earlier and read or listen to music instead of watching short videos that might be disturbing.  

I can do what I did on Friday when I needed to do something, and Caleb just would not leave me alone long enough to get it done.  I shut the door between us, left him with Grampa and got on with the task.  And I can remind John at other times that I need him to help me at that moment by distracting the boy.  

I can, if needed, get in the car and take a ride along those backroads near the house and get my taste of peace and quiet and then return and go on about my business.  

I can continue to say 'No' when I'm well and truly tired.  

I can take better care of me.  I'm not as good at that as I ought to be.  I think there is a fine line between taking care of oneself and selfishness, or so it seems to me.  And that reminds me that of all things, I need balance the most.  The right balance of together and alone time.  The right balance of work and play, sleep and activity.  And the balance in doing it myself and asking others to do things.  

The hardest thing is finding the time alone...No solutions for that at the moment.

I read a segment the other day somewhere about the benefits of putting your hands down in the dirt.  There is something in fertile soil that contains natural antidepressants the article said.  Honestly, give me one more reason to plan to plant lots of pretty flowers or to grow vegetables!    I found it amusing to read that because I'd known these past couple of weeks as I dug about in the soil to plant things, I felt so peaceful.  Of course, I attributed it to the gentle bird calls and general quietness outdoors, and even to the sunshine, but you know perhaps it wasn't those things at all.  Maybe it was the dirt all along!

I confess I don't much like dirt.  I have dry hands and especially nails and dirt is even more drying than cleaning the house.  But I do get a world of satisfaction from seeing things grow and thrive.  

The coreopsis is still blooming.  The Gladiolus are taking their time, blooming one stalk at a time.  The hydrangea is full of big blooms, the Gardenia has scented the air continuously.  The day lily is so vibrant that John and I sat in the car the other day and just stared.  "Were they always that bright?" we asked.  

The Hibiscus, Geraniums, coleus are all lovely.  The Orange rescue rose is thriving.  The Eggplants put on new leaves and three inches of growth in a week.  The onions have sent up shoots that now stand four or five inches tall.  I have two tomatoes.  Official tomatoes, not just tomato plants.  The plants are loaded with blooms.  Only the basil appears to be suffering.  I've no idea why.  The sage is looking lush, the dill is growing well.  

I'm still planting.  I added Gaillardia seeds to the barrel that holds the Coreopsis.  I planted more chives, some in a container with flowers, some more basil, a different variety this time, in with a few of the tomatoes. I planted cosmos and a few zinnias.  I have Hollyhock, more zinnias, and Sweet William.  I may have more... Yes, I do!  Hollyhocks, Mexican Torch flower (Tithonia), sunflowers, more basil, and I can't recall what all else.  Oh, and I can't forget the Sweet Potatoes I have sprouted that will go into a planter, the coleus that is really big now and ready to provide cuttings for more plants...

I've spent a bit this year on the gardening portion, but you know it's my gift to me, part of taking care of myself.  And if I grow a bit of food, too then I'm taking care of others, though none but myself likes basil or eggplant...But perhaps they'll enjoy the tomatoes and such. 

I've been making it a point to read more of late.  I've gone through several books.  Now and then I'll take a week off from holding a book, but mostly I am enjoying losing myself in a book, which is truly about the only way I can get time 'alone' while appearing to be right here with everyone.  

For as long as I can remember, I've had the lovely ability to lose myself in a book, to literally tune things out and dwell within that space created by another's words, to live for a bit in an alternative space where things are not as they are here.  Even problems within a book are fresh compared to my own old worn-out ones, you know?

And while I'm reading, I often think of other books I'd like to read once more.  Friends...That's what my books become, at least a few.  They become my friends.  I seek solace in them. I laugh, cry, commiserate with the characters.  I know their likes and dislikes and now and then, if I've read a lot of books by the same author, I've come to know the author, too, when little details show up again and again.  And sometimes it's just a solid recognition of one line.  D. E. Stevenson had a character in one of her books declare, "I've never quite trusted anyone who didn't like chocolate!" and I knew immediately that was a true feeling translated to the page.  

The date of Gramma's daycare starting keeps getting pushed further and further back.  It's the job that is the issue, not the person who asked me to keep the kids.  Management forgot they didn't have the resources any longer to deal with employees working at the office.  It's all a bit of a tangle and every now and then rumors surface that the company is going to do more downsizing and then it's, "No, no... we're going to bring you to the office to work permanently', or 'two days a week', or 'four half days', and then more rumors of layoffs.  

That is one thing I do enjoy about retirement days.  No one is threatening to lay us off!  In fact, I'd kinda like to have someone say, "You know what?  We've decided to outsource this after all..." "I'm sorry ma'am, but we have to let you go..."  And you'd see me over there waving goodbye and skipping away quite happily.    Florida, here I come, even if it is hot and humid there.  

But I've not been given my walking papers, just a delay from one quarter and a constant daily reminder from John to Caleb that he has to be careful not to leave things strowed about, 'because if Gramma gets hurt this ship sinks."  No pressure or anything, lol.  

It's not all drudgery and dread.  Not at all.  Just as when Sam and Bess lived here there are vast rewards.  There is seldom a day that we don't laugh out loud over something Caleb says, or we are bowled over by his empathy and compassion for others.  There's a peacefulness here in our house despite the extra folks in it.  It's not always ideal.  Sometimes we have to remind one another that one of us is totally out of line, or at least slipping a bit too close to the middle of the line.

It's getting late.  I think I'll end here.  But before we say good evening, I'll tell you all that I deeply appreciate your friendship, your comments, your support.  Hugs to all of you!