When December Comes

Alright, well, I gave 30 Days Hath November my very best shot.  I promise.  I had some vague idea about sitting down yesterday and writing twelve blog posts before midnight in order to finish it under the letter of the law, if not the spirit.  Obviously that didn't happen, because instead I spent most of yesterday dripping tears like a leaky faucet, taking a bath, rallying to run some errands and eat nachos with the boy before then collapsing into bed and falling asleep.

Sometimes Yale is lonely.  Sometimes I feel like even three months in, I'm still the odd kid out at the playground, watching everyone else have a good time and never being asked to join in.  I'm working on it, this making friends thing.  It's hard, still.

But I put up Christmas lights, and made chili and bread today, and all of that helps marginally, so that's something.

Stay warm, everyone.

Warmer days

Not my best day

Just like with any couple, there are things that Alix is good at and things that I'm good at.  I remember to buy toilet paper before we have to start using tissues, for example, and she calls the super when the pipes are so hot they're melting the paint off of them.  Unfortunately, when you're on your own, you don't get to divvy up the chores and beg the other person to do the ones you hate to do.  Which is why I haven't called the super about the kitchen faucet that has slowed to a trickle over the last three days.  It's also why I spent fifteen minutes clipping Tucker's claws tonight.  Alix is cool, calm, and efficient when she's on pedicure duty.  I am, in a word, not.  I have to wrap Tucker in a towel and it takes me at least five minutes to wrangle each toe from the growling, writhing, terry-cloth-and-cat bundle clutched on my lap.  Against all my wishes, I needed to take on this onerous task tonight because our screen is in danger of ripping down the middle if Tucker gets his claws stuck in it one more time when he's pursuing our fire escape pigeons.  So there I am, squinting in the dim light, sweat pouring down my face, hands shaking too much to hold the clippers, idly wondering how high my fever is now, and I actually hear how crazy I am:
"No, Rupert, stop, STOP! STOP JUMPING ON ME!!"
"Tucker, NO! Just. Hold. Still. Please."
"Rupert, I swear to god, if you don't sit down right now, I will put you in your crate.  Don't think I won't!"
"Tucker, you don't act like this with your other mother, so don't start this with me. Just HOLD STILL!"
and so on
until we were done
and this day got the best of me
and I burst into tears.

I tried for four days to convince myself that a constant fever, a headache that never eased up, and an ever-worsening cough were just a common flu.  This morning though, when the dim sunrise made me wince and set my eyes streaming, I knew it was time to give up the ghost.  Three appointments later, and the top contenders for a diagnosis are pneumonia and meningitis.  I never thought I'd be praying to have pneumonia, but that's exactly what I'm doing.  The countdown is on for tomorrow morning: if I don't feel better by then, it's off to the hospital for a lumbar puncture.  NOT FUN.

I've felt adrift and disoriented without Alix here, but today was the first day I felt truly lost and alone.  I rushed home in between my appointments to walk the dog and nearly passed out each time on the stairs.  I couldn't afford yet another cab ride at the end of the day so I had to take the forty-five minute subway trip home.  Thankfully, a kind and alarmed-looking gentleman gave me his seat after I sagged dangerously against the pole when I started to black out.  I talked to myself in the mirror for ten minutes tonight, convincing myself to eat dinner, knowing that my body needs nourishment in order to get better.  (That logic didn't sit well with the eating disorder, but I told it to go to hell, at least for tonight.)  I can't help thinking back to this time last year when Alix was sick and I took care of her.  I sat in the dark kitchen one night, too scared to sleep, and prayed silent, desperate pleas for her to get better.  I gently helped her from the bed to the bathroom and back.  I cooked up an enormous batch of chicken soup. I brought home trashy magazines from the pharmacy along with her medications.  I know (because I talked to her and she told me) that if she were here, she'd be doing all those things for me.  Not because she owes me, but because that's what you do for the person you love.  I desperately hope I don't need a lumbar puncture tomorrow.  Not because it will hurt.  But because I won't have anyone's hand to hold when it does.

Broken

I thought I knew what loneliness was.  When I first arrived at college, when I went through a huge breakup, when I was hospitalized my junior year - those were lonely, isolating times.  None of that holds a candle to what life is like now.

I wake up after two hours of sleep every night.  I spend an hour or so in bed, trying to fall back asleep.  Finally, I get up and spend the next several hours on the couch wandering aimlessly around the internet and occasionally trying to read.  I don't have the attention span for books anymore so that's kind of a lost cause.  Eventually, I'll shower, get dressed, say goodbye to a still-sleeping Alix, and drop Rupert off at daycare.  I spend my day having conversations with toddlers and not interacting with anyone over the age of four for nine hours.  I watch the kids playing, as if from a far distance, too dizzy to stand, and curse myself for being an inadequate nanny.  I pick up Rupert from daycare, come home, and collapse.  And then it begins.  The slow and steady slide into a pit of loneliness so dark that  it is damn near impossible to comprehend if you haven't felt it yourself.  The apartment is still.  The dog sleeps.  I do...nothing.  Until around 8 PM when I take Rupert out one last time, get ready for bed, dutifully take my sleep meds and hope, stupidly, that they'll work tonight.  Then I'll collapse, exhausted for what is the equivalent of a nap.  When I do get up, I scoot over Alix's sleeping body and dizzily make my way to the couch.  I wait for the sun to rise so that I can try to forget that I've been awake since 1:00, 2:00, or 3:00 AM. 

And then I do it again.  I don't remember the last time I had a conversation with Alix that wasn't slurred through the sleep medications we each take.  I've given up on waking her up when I can't sleep - something we used to do for each other when one of us couldn't sleep.  She won't wake up or she'll speak gibberish for ten seconds before nodding off again.  I can't blame her, she's worked to the bone at her summer job.  So instead, I climb over her each night and dread the day to come.

There's nothing romantic about real, true loneliness.  There are beautiful poems, books, and essays on the topic that are all a crock of shit.  Loneliness doesn't bring you closer to God (or whoever).  It doesn't give your brain a "chance to contemplate things."  It's the sinking awareness that no matter how many people surround you, no matter how busily you fill your day, you are always alone.  Always.

Pre-Dawn Thoughts

I'm not going to lie, waking up at 3:30 AM isn't fun.  Waking up because you're shaking with panic and can't get back to sleep, no matter how hard you try, no matter how soothingly your bed-mate talks to you, and no matter how high a (safe) dosage of anti-anxiety medication you take really, really sucks. 

On the other hand, sitting here on the couch, watching the room slowly fill with soft, gray light (no real sunshine this morning, unfortunately), listening to music through my headphones, wrapped in a fleecy blanket, and browsing the internet with no intention is kind of...nice.  I am glad for Alix and Rupert that they are peacefully asleep.  I don't resent my solitude, in spite of the loneliness that inevitably hovers in my subconscious like a pesky cough that never seems to quite leave your lungs.  My loneliness and I have made a kind of peace with each other.  I accept that it's here to stay, for an indefinite period of time, and that I am given occasional respite from its persistent presence through the love and support of family and friends.  My loneliness, in turn, has learned to back off a bit when I am surrounded by this love and waits semi-patiently in the background until it again seizes free reign over my mind.  So yes, am I lonely out here on the couch by myself, tired but not sleepy, dreading the day ahead?  Of course.  But I'm also enjoying the rising sun, the fleecy blanket, and the warm computer on my lap. 

I'm also enjoying the thought of my friends and family in different places and what they're doing with their time right now.  My dear mother has been up since at least 5 AM and is enjoying her morning coffee at the kitchen table with my father in their pajamas.  She will shower soon and get dressed for work, driving an hour through the countryside, listening to NPR and idly thinking of her many children and the newest renovations on the house she and my dad are working on.  I might not know time differences for shit, but I imagine a college friend, of Latitude 43, waking up to the crisp, cool air in her Chilean home and shivering a bit while building a fire in the gray foggy morning light that New York is also seeing this morning.  I imagine a newish but so-close-I-swear-we're-twins friend, of The (Online) Nanny Diaries solidly asleep in her cheery yellow room, buried under her blue covers, getting ready to wake up to a full day of work and the chance to love on her six-week-old nannyboy.  I imagine my friend in Brazil on a Fulbright sleeping under barely a sheet, with the warm breeze blowing through an open window (truth be told, I don't have a clue what the weather is like in Brazil these days, but I'd like to imagine someone in paradise right now), getting ready for her day of research and adventuring in a new country that is beginning to feel like home to her.  I wonder, do they ever think of me?  Do they think of me catching a nasty cold from my nannykids, or waking up at 3:30 AM, or getting my morning coffee around the corner and enjoying the first delicious sip? Do they know how much my heart aches for their physical presence, for their hugs and kind words, and their simple proximity to myself?

I'd like to imagine they do.  It might be selfish to pine for these things, but when loneliness and anxiety are always waiting impatiently for the chance to flood their way into my mind, I think pining for love is justified.  Lord knows I'm lucky to have as much coming my way as I do.  But right now, sitting alone on the couch, I'm trying hard to remember what it feels like to feel warm arms around me and kind words whispered in my ear.  In the meantime, I'll relish my blanket, my music, and my loneliness solitude.