Temporary? Insanity

Sleeping or awake, I can’t seem to escape the nightmares lately. Becca slept in an hour longer than usual yesterday and I found myself lost in a “day-mare”, weeping over her lifeless little body. And though her cheerful shout of Maaaaaa-Meeeee! soon shook me free, I can still see her in my mind’s eye. Her pale blond hair adhered by sweat to the side of one usually rosy cheek. The vacant look in her blue eyes. The stillness of her.


It seems more than a dream somehow. I feel chilled. Unsettled. Perhaps it was that it attacked me during my waking hours. Perhaps that has allowed the fear in. The fear that I have suddenly become extraordinary and prophetic.


The nighttime hours stretch forward. There are blurry moments between dreams where I gradually reckon the passing of time. The dreams are so vivid and reality is not. Everything turned upside down and sideways till nothing is in its proper place. I dream of loss, sorrow, monsters, hatred, fear, so much fear. It is as if everything negative within me is concentrated, pouring forth from my subconscious in great bursts of terror. The intensity is enough to break me and I awake sobbing, soaking the pillow, soaking Neil’s shirt till at last he soothes me. I sleep again. I dream again.


I dream of Neil with a quizzical little smile on his face. He is explaining why the engagement is off. Somehow, it makes sense. It’s oh so logical, the way he puts it. I acquiesce graciously. He smiles again. All is well. And then the crashing, crushing realization that all is not, cannot be or ever be well. The worst nightmare of all. Love rescinded. Again I wake up sobbing. Poor Neil. I’m sure the guest room is looking very appealing by now.


And in the morning the night is a light pierced fog of memory. So much blurriness, and yet bright spots within yield so much in the way of residual pain and fear. Exhaustion sets in and somehow the mere pouring of a bowl of cereal seems enough to set my head spinning.


I have been verbally cursed, scowled and glared at by other women. It is no safe or easy thing to admit to having never thrown up over the course of a pregnancy. And yet, I think I would take that symptom over this one (perhaps a foolish wish – but then, many wishes are). I think I would prefer the physical affliction to the mental. Prefer hating the sight of the toilet to hating the sight of my pillow each night.


But then, I feel her stirring within me. Feel the poking and prodding and sudden leaps of movement that I laughingly say bring the song Kung Fu Fighting to mind. She is worth this. I may forget that in the hazy world of nighttime fears, but now, here in the light, I can remember.


She is worth this.

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