For the past two months, my excuse
for hibernating is “so busy with the holidays, you know.” So what if I’m busy
binge re-reading my Tony Hillerman Leaphorn and Chee books.
There isn’t a better reason for sticking
close to home than hearing everyone you know has the flu, or some other
mysterious virus. I’ve limited my social interaction to avoid giving or
receiving unwanted gifts of disease.
Now, the New Year is here and the “holidays,
you know” are so last year. Last weekend was busy from start to finish. By
today, I was totally exhausted. It didn’t help that I got four hours sleep for
two days in a row followed by one thirteen-hour night to make a healthy
seven-hour a night average.
I blame my four-hour nights on
years of caregiving. Jim never seemed to need more than four hours of sleep, so
that meant if I wanted to keep track of him, I couldn’t sleep while he was up
wandering around. In the story “Gone in the Night” I re-live every caregiver’s
nightmare of waking up alone in bed, alone in the house, and thinking I might
be alone in the world.
Excerpt from Indelible:
Although I had a
sense of urgency, I drove cautiously because I didn’t want to hit him with the
car. I had no idea how long he’d been gone, and the farther I traveled without
seeing him, the more I panicked.
I reached the
crossroads and without hesitation, turned left, choosing Jim’s normal route. I
pressed onward, fear and worry jockeying for position in my mind. I rounded the
next corner, headlights slicing through the darkness. There he was! The tension
drained from my body, replaced with elation and relief.
Jim was fully
dressed wearing jacket, jeans, his “Vietnam Veteran and Proud of It” cap, and
his sunglasses. He seemed to be unaware of the car and continued his measured
tortoise pace, cane grasped in his left hand. I pulled over and stopped behind
him, climbed out of the car, speed walking to catch up with him. I reached out
and wrapped my fingers around his bicep, and he stopped as if he had applied
his brakes.
To be honest, when Jim first went
into the nursing home, I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep alone in the house.
It turned out that I was so exhausted that it took me months to catch up on my
rest. Once I did, though, I was back to my four-hour sleep nights. I still
struggle to get anything like a normal night’s sleep. It concerns me because I
know chronic lack of sleep is a health hazard.
I need to get back in the groove. I
took down the three Christmas trees and removed ornaments from the two trees
that are lit year round. I need to finish taking down and putting away my huge
collection of nutcrackers. For the first days of January, the twelve days of
Christmas hadn’t finished, but that excuse won’t work now. “Maybe I’ll just
leave everything up and won’t have to decorate next year,” I told Harold.
“You would have to dust them,” he
pointed out. He knows how much I detest dusting whatnots.
“Guess I’d rather put them away
than dust them,” I said.
I’ve grown fond of putting off
until tomorrow that which I do not want to do today. Getting back into the
groove isn’t all that easy. I think I’ll start…tomorrow.
Copyright © January 2018 by L.S.
Fisher
#ENDALZ
