Pat

The heavy grey wind slapped across my face as I walked home to my car in the afternoon with the dull rumble of the river beside me and the sting of my hair in my eyes. With every gust my wrap dress would unwrap and lift then tangle itself between my thighs and little bites would come through my stockings into my legs and hip. I shivered walking, underdressed for once and hugged my bag against my side, the dangling arm holding my lunch pail cooling and whitening. The car was warm inside, having been parked outside all day and the leather had swelled and softened with it as I snuggled into it before putting my key in its holder and pressing the button that turns the car on and flinching from the too loud radio over the whine of the engine.

I backed out and began to drive, heading towards the mountains that hover protectively over our little hill and tried to let the tension seep out of my shoulders into the warm leather. Rubbing my dry lips together and feeling the flake of my matte lipstick as I indicated left for our street.

As the tension uncoiled, the tiredness began to set in and the fog of it surrounded me until I was wrapped securely in it unable and unwilling to break free. Thinking of dinner and wanting, wishing more than anything to not make and not cook and not eat anything but instead to crawl into bed and sleep for a week. But like always, I parked my car in its spot and turned off the engine. Sitting quietly listening to the radio for a few minutes as I always do before climbing out, collecting the bin and tapping my heels against the polished floor boards as I clicked into the kitchen and began the second round.

When Bingley's contract ended on his last job, it was of little concern. He's never been out of work since he graduated and has jumped his way up the career ladder as he always planned. And when 3 months later I returned from my time away, it was not so much of a worry that there was not much on the horizon because something always turns up. And we still had savings and we could keep on keeping on. Then Christmas came and the cool hand of it started to play around in my chest at times, as I watched our little nest egg erode.

Then it was 7 months then 8 and I would wake in a cold sweat thinking of it. Thinking how I couldn't support us all alone. Not without many things giving. And I love working, but we're a team, and all of the responsibility would suffocate me in the night until I sat up gasping.

At 9 months the cracks started to appear, and I began to feel each day that someone had a hold of the key in my side and was winding too much every day, and I worried about how many more winds I could take before the spring cracked and I was broken. But when I was at work I could shut it all out. I could be busy and work hard and not have time to dwell or be anxious. I could be good at my work and while the spectre of a looming exam was never far from my thoughts, I would chase my fear of failure and of study and of financial responsibility away and would instead throw myself into learning and procedures and having one thing in perfect harmony.

And it worked, most of the time, until the morning I came in and found out that the gentleman I'd done a procedure on the previous day had died. Had died of a complication that had come from the procedure that I'd done. That had it not been for me he and his kindly eyes and his soft voice would have still had life and his family would still have had warm hands to hold. And all the rest of that wretched day I worked, but the tears would not stay out of my eyes, and all I could think of was how I never see my children and I work so hard and in the end I have taken a life instead of given it. That that poor man's family would
have been called and if he had not met me, if it had been someone else, maybe he would have lived.

I came home that night and sat on my bed with my feet on the floor and I sobbed. I sobbed until all the tears had gone and the spirit had gone from my breath and so the only sounds that came were the sounds of the shudder as it racked through my chest. Bingley came in and stroked my head as it continued until the nausea began and I started retching, all done. Finished. Complete.

And for all those months that I'd planned how I'd celebrate for him, surprise him when he got a new job, of all days it was that one when Bingley could finally lift some of the weight from my shoulders. But there was a catch, that as my sobs subsided in the warmth of his belly as he held me there with my feet still flat on the floor, that started the sobs anew. This new job is away. Far away and he would be leaving in 3 days time. For weeks.

I thought of getting the girls to school and the Possum to kindy and then getting to work and I thought I could do that, that the rush rush rush I had not missed, but I could do that. Then I thought of coming home every night, of rushing home in the traffic and the rapidly darkening day as the sun tucks herself under her golden pink covers and making dinner and supervising home work and tidying and ironing and washing and sorting everything and whatever strength I had deserted me. I was 4 weeks out of an exam. A specialist exam with a pass rate of 25%. And I pulled my feet up off the floor, curled up under the blanket and cried some more.

Of course, eventually I got up, because what other choice is there? I could have lain there forever. I could have used any and all of those excuses for why I just can't do or be. But what sort of life would that be? There is a steely core within me. Some stubborn tenacious sort of fibre that refuses to break, and I set about making things work. I hired a new after school nanny, I wrote up a timetable, I had a family meeting and I had most of all a long, hard talk with myself and I told myself I could do this because there is and was no other choice.

It's not been all sunshine and roses. I can't be the worker I was before he died because he still haunts the periphery so that there's a tremble sometimes when I finish a procedure now, and an assumption that all things can and will go wrong. I have none of the confidence that comes from ignorance and I have tasted real fear for the first time in my life. There is a new quietness, and I was never loud in the first place. I withdrew so far into my shell that I'm blinded even coming near the light, and part of me doesn't want to come out again, but prefers to stay hidden and safe.

I am thinner again. My elbows are pointier and when I lie flat my anterior superior iliac spines are visible, tenting the pale skin above that does not pull taut but instead drapes across them. My belly again has the slack softness where it was stretched by the Possum and faded into silveriness and no longer has anything to hold it out so it falls. My jaw is stronger and has shadows underneath and there are little hollows in my cheeks that suck against my teeth when I am tired. Strangely, my breasts have remained full and soft and have not emptied with the rest of me, I am glad of this, to have one thing left of what it used to be like to be me.

There are lines around my eyes, still faint and not permanent yet, but they will be, and I am handsomer now than I was at 21 or 25. Not that I was or will ever be pretty, but my features are less harsh on this tired face than they were on the pillowy roundness of youth. My arms and my legs are thinner and my feet are smaller too. Who knew that feet could change in size. My hair is nearly down to my waist again and is darker too, and falls out in strands that get stuck in the bristles of the broom.

When Bingley is away I have no appetite and when the exam came I did not eat because I could not. And as I lay in my hammock afterwards, drifting listlessly in the pale afternoon light I was given food and forced to eat it for all I did not want it, because people were becoming concerned and I suppose they had reason. So I ate.

And now I live by my schedule where everything must be fitted in and around and somehow squished into the few hours of each day. And the children are happy and settled. They are thriving on all the routine and are helping. They miss Bingley too, but they know he is coming home and they know how much he needed to work. We read at night on the white sofa with the cuddly grey blankets in the pale white lamplight and they snuggle into me as I choke up reading Charlotte's Web. And I turn off all the lights at a sensible hour, and I climb into bed, feeling satisfied that the washing is folded and put away and that the kitchen is clean and the ironing is done.

And I lie here in bed, in my cold bed with the late Autumn wind whispering over me and I tell myself to sleep, because the tiredness makes my bones ache and I am doing far too much for one person who does not get enough sleep. And sleep evades me, night after night. So I read and I write and I compose stories in my head. And I miss the warmth in my bed that even on my worst days was always there, that I could somehow absorb into until his regular breathing became my breathing. Or the days when the tears came when I could burrow into the warmth and have it envelop me, encase me and penetrate me until all the cold was chased away.

I'm afraid to cry, but also I don't want to. The little thread inside me, the little core that refuses to break but instead tenaciously holds every piece together is intact. And while my skin may be softer than ever before and the legs that are holding me upright are whittled down, there is still a fire that burns there in the middle, and refuses to go out and believes all this is for a purpose. If only to prove that I can do anything, if I put my mind to it.

But I'm so tired.

Antares

The airconditioning is humming tonight, the first in a while that we've needed it to suck the humidity. It's cool enough, just wet and the Possum doesn't sleep well under water. I don't like shutting all the windows for it, I can't hear the night and the wind sulks and won't play but the stillness and the rumbling of the vents make me sleep like the dead.

I have been dreaming a lot lately. Big, colourful, nonsensical dreams. I dreamed of a platypus the other night. Snakes another. Freud would have fun with the snakes, but I'm not sure how he'd react to platypi. The internet is not helpful. One site suggested it represented shyness, depression and negativity while another made innuendo regarding playfulness "downunder". I don't feel shy. Or negative. Or depressed. So I don't know what to make of it, though I remember being both surprised and completely at ease when accosted by a platypus.

I feel, if anything, wistful right now. Thinking of sweet things that tease the edges of memory and make me smile. Little snippets of a life well lived and a vague sense of... something.

There had been, in the centre of my chest, for some 3 years a beautiful bright kite that danced in the wind with streamers behind it against a bright and beautiful blue sky. And after flying high and battling the gusts it would occasionally crash to the ground with a sickening thud, and I would survey the damage, sometimes dispassionately, sometimes heartbroken, before running with the string behind me until the kite flew again. Veering drunkenly sometimes, but still fluttering with its beautiful tail. Then the last few times it fell, pieces were torn from it that can't be patched back, and then a little while ago, I stopped trying to see it flying and instead wrapped it up carefully and placed it away in a cupboard in my chest, leaving the remnants as intact as possible, not wanting to see any more torn off.

For some time, after I placed it in storage, I would have a memory of the bright colours and I would get a burning pain, right in the middle of my chest and I would fight the desperate urge to push it into the sky again, to prove that it could still fly. And maybe it can, but I refuse to tear any further strips off while trying to create something that has passed, I like the memories better.

The sky is very close tonight, and thick, tactile. I think the night gets lonely sometimes in Winter and longs for the endless Summer days when the sounds and the scents and the voices echo through her. Summer is still partying, but it is winding up, slowly. The music is playing but there are fewer dancers on the floor and the cool grey of Winter dawn is creeping around her edges.

I long for cooler days. I love the yellow dawns that wake me with brightness and heat and getting out in the rich sultry air before anyone else wakes and the way the wet humid Earth smells as I cross it, but I want even more the sensation of cool air slapping me awake and the thin cool greyness that slides over bare limbs and strokes it alive. I love the silver of the Winter night and the pure white glow of the stars and the moon. I love my Antares, twinkling away with her ruby glow in the heart of the scorpion dangerous and beautiful.

On a night long ago, I remember being disorientated as I got off a bus near midnight and had to stumble home through darkened streets that passed a cemetery. Being an imaginative 16 year old the sounds of night terrified me and I wished more than ever to be safe at home, not stumbling over the streets of suburban Geneva. But through the clouds that covered the sky for most of the time I was there, the moon came out, and just above the horizon the familiar whip tail of the Scorpion was visible and I was not afraid any more.

Some decade later, climbing off a bus onto a busy side road of another city far from home, the frigid wind curled around my exposed wrists and neck and made me shiver in spite of myself. I felt lost, and discombobulated and not sure which direction I should head, struggling with my internal compass as I crossed the overpass over the steady traffic, avoiding the pool of urine against concrete. As I looked up the sky was clear and in spite of the light pollution that faded the night towards the margins like a streaky watercolour, I still found her in the sky, my red star, following my heart.

I don't need a platypus in a dream to tell me that I feel lost again and in need of guidance, and somehow it feels as if the Winter will provide me that. I feel some sort of hope in my chest and assurance that great things are in store for this year, if I am patient and work hard and am humble. I do not know if I will fly again so high as I used, or if my colours will be so bright, but there is something new in me now, a strength that I never before knew I possessed, and a determination. A thread of something shining, and never broken that keeps on looking forward. And I know, somehow, that that will be rewarded this year, and my star will lead me home.

Sandcastles

I dreamed last night, like I have not dreamed in a long time. It was a night filled with dreams, one after another, like a movie marathon projected against my eyelids. Misty dreams and clear dreams. The last taking my breath so that I woke gasping for air and struggled to pull the thin cool greyness into my chest.

It was warmer this time last year. I remember a wide purple sky and rippled water one day in the sun as I drew in the sand and considered stripping off my clothes to play in the gentle waves being as I had no bathers. It was one of those days that tattoos itself in white ink on your skin and never fades, just suprising you sometimes when you catch it glittering beneath the dermis. I was there with a little girl with big blue eyes who drew pictures in the sand with me, chased tiny fish with her toes and trusted me in that implicit innocent way that makes you want to wrap them in your arms and shield them from all the horrible things in life.

I remember finding a banksia core and showing her how when you strip away the crumbly, crunchy exterior that inside is smooth brown velvet, and watching her slide her fingers over it too. Such a silly thing to teach, but strangely glad that I got to teach something. I don't know if she remembers me; my guess is probably not. I do not remember all of the adults that briefly swept in and taught me something. I don't remember friends of my parents who probably hugged me and gave me Christmas gifts, what they smelled like, if they ever sang me to sleep. But it's nice to think that they were there, these nameless, faceless adults that only ever meant well. That life is not all about hiding from potential offenders.

This little girl was in my dream last night, holding a dark haired baby and grinning like only stupendously proud little girls can. I don't remember much about the baby, and its' strange, because you'd think that's who I would have been focusing on, being as I have seen that baby in my dreams a few times now.

I wonder if the dream was prophetic, and if the little girl will one day soon have a baby brother or sister. To follow her and tackle her around the knees like my Possum does with the Elfling. A blue eyed sibling to share her memories of childhood and to sit on the beach one day and draw pictures in the sand. I hope that she might, because she's the type of little girl that you know is an excellent big sister. But I guess I will never know.

Tired again

Rinse repeat. Very busy day. Nothing on tomorrow besides packing. The thought of it brings a lump to my throat so here are some things that take it away.

Late shifts make it hard to write blog posts

I got in my car at the end of my shift, and turned the corner towards the highway when she appeared, sailing serenely between drifts of clouds. Too large to be real, too bright not to be. As I sat at the lights I thought of the journeys one would have there, perched on the very tip of that crescent vessel as she explored the stormy skies. And as I watched, I was sure I saw a little girl with long dark hair and sapphire blue eyes waving back.

My little aethereal daughter and her ship of ghostly dreams.

Dreams

I slept in this morning. Not a proper, wake up at 10am type of sleep in, but one where I was at least permitted to stay in bed until then; woken at intervals, listening to thr joyful shrieks of children and the occasional hopeful interruption by Bingley before drifting back into dreams. Dreams so realistic that I swayed a little when I woke up, disorientated and trying to work out where dreams faded and reality began.

The first dream, around dawn involved pregnancy again. And giving birth. Very vivid birthing scenes of a very pale, very long, blond haired baby boy. Not the baby from my other dream, that one was almost assuredly a girl.

What was strange was the sense of fear, loneliness and detachment I had with this baby. As if it represented something that I was afraid of. I was afraid to love him. Afraid to touch him. At one point sitting and watching him as he slept, much like I did with the Possum when he was born with the panorama of the city behind him. And I konw that I loved him but that I was afraid of that. For some reason I was sure that someone was going to take him away.

As I drifted uncomfortably back into vague hyperreality the dream shifted. I was in a strange city, in an airport, on my own. There was bustle all around me but I felt completely isolated and alone as I pulled my luggage behind me and started walking towards the centre of the city. There was a body of water between me and the tall skyscrapers and a bridge of cars zooming past as I walked towards it, looking at the glow of the city lights on the rippling water. It was very dark where I was, but the city was lit up like a Christmas tree as I walked towards it, ferries zipping underneath the bridge. My heart was in my mouth for this walk, not because of fear of being along and in the dark, but because so much was invested in where I was going.

The third dream had me in a nice hotel room, maybe in the strange city? I was curled up in the hotel white fluffy bathrobe all alone in the room. It was a mid level room with views over the city below and a vague hum that comes from cities filtered by thick glass. I didn't have the curtains drawn, they were wide open and there were no lights in the room. So tehre was no glare, just the living drama outside my windows, lives bustling, deals being made, people falling in love, people playing music, people eating, people walking up and down.

In one of my hands I held the remote for the TV and in the other my mobile phone. I could not see the message on my phone clearly but I know I was debating pressing send. In the end I hit send and waited for something, staring into the dark panorama before me, falling asleep alone in the large hotel bed curled up still in the bathrobe. The TV was on, casting flickering shadows around the room as the pay per view movie played on even as I was asleep. It was definitely a Friday night, and I was waiting for something, but I'm not sure what.

The fourth dream had me unlocking an apartment door somewhere. It was later in the afternoon and I was coming home from work tired. The apartment was empty, no one waiting for me. I curled up on a couch with a glass of water and closed my eyes.

Processing

I dreamed of you. You were not yet born but I knew you. Curled deep within me, limbs folded in the tight surrounds, not uncomfortable but close. Your perfect lips moved as if to suck the fingertips that brushed them, knowing even now before you'd taken your first breath how to suckle. Your eyes closed, lids fluttering sometimes in response to the light on my belly.

I dreamt of lying in warm afternoon light, skin exposed so that you could feel the warmth too, casting you in the rose tinted glow. Your father talking to you, worshipping you even though he had never met you. Reverent at the sight of my pale taut skin, housing you, keeping you safe.

Your hair, long and dark, almost black, swished in the warm water that surrounded you, tickling your translucent ears. Your dark eyelashes matching your hair, hiding the eyes that perfectly matched mine beneath.

We were waiting for you in the sunshine. Your father and I, dreaming of you. Of our life with you. How all would be different when you came. Hands over my skin, feeling you stretch beneath. Breath catching as I had no room to inhale. Rubbing the outline of tiny feet.

I dreamed of you coming, of birthing you as your father cried. Of holding you wet and slippery and warm against my chest bathed in pain and joy. Of the damp ringlets on your head matching mine. Of your first cry. Of tiny long fingers that wrapped around my own, snaring my heart for eternity.

It was so real I woke in the cool darkness of reality and ran my hand over the softness of my belly, tracing the indent of the pale silver scars that 3 pregnancies have left and felt a tear trickle down my cheek while my throat burned. I know that this dream was stupendously easy to interpret. After playing with a newborn on the weekend and also now that we cannot have any more children there is obviously some adjusting and processing to go through. But for a second it was so real. I felt you. I loved you.

Throwing Copper

Yesterday afternoon I woke up from an afternoon nap to find the golden sunset on my skin and rain on my face. The rain was coming in through the window and the sun was setting under the clouds making the world golden and clean and new. I ran out into it, got drenched, watched my hair curl wildly, tasted cool clean water running into my mouth. Marvelled at how bright and gilded was my skin as goosebumps were raised from the cold water.

It was a change, it was washing away the tiredness and reminding me physically, that there are so many reasons to be alive. I didn't dread bedtime, I didn't wait up for him, expecting his squawk as soon as my head hit the pillow. I decided to just take it however it went.

And he slept. 7:30pm until 3:00am, he fell back asleep after his feed/drowning. He woke up at about 5:30am.

I am renewed. And buxom. But that bit I can live with.

Red Dawn

For the last 3 mornings I have laid back against my couch, spent, exhausted and cold, and watched the sun rise, yellow and fiery against the pale light of morning. But today the sky was darker when I woke, not the intense pale blue waiting to be warmed with golden light. It was red, the sky suffused with scarlet emotion.

When I said I was tired yesterday, I did not mean it idly. I mean that every part of me hurts. My muscles are sore and weak. My brain is fuzzy and hungover. My tongue dry. My temper non-existent. Everything that the girls do is annoying me. Every squeal, every adventure, every demand they make of me. Bingley can do nothing right. I held the Possum yesterday and it made me cry to hold him because I did not want to. I wanted to put him in his bed and for him to sleep. Which of course he didn't.

I wanted to call someone, anyone, to come and watch my children so that I could sleep, but there was no one that I could invite into the cesspit that is my house, so I just sat there and stared numbly at the mess. Cried a bit when I realised that the girls had been playing with a tin of condensed milk and robotically changed nappies and walked around with my shirt undone because the feeds never really ended.

The Possum has a headcold, and I am willing to bet an ear infection. A slight temperature and a new tooth. He is still smiling and happy, so long as he is in my arms. He is sick, so I can't leave him to cry, but I am exhausted. I need to sleep, but I am letting Bingley sleep in this morning because he is working ridiculous hours including weekends and needs it more. He is also doing the bulk of the housework other than the cooking. He deserves sleep.

The girls are antsy and frustrated. Because I have no energy they are being left to entertain themselves, and then I get angry when the result of that is mess/destruction/sticky floors. It's my own fault but I just can't get up these last 2 days to direct them. So I just watch impotently as they upend yet another bucket of toys, yell a bit, and then cry when the Elfling gives me a letter "MUMMy [Elfling] Loves YouR hAir and prette face".

I know that this too will pass. I know that the Possum will sleep, that I will sleep again some time. I know that I will regain my sense of humour and that I'm only one 5 hour stretch away from feeling a million dollars. But it's so goddamned hard. People talk about sleep deprivation with a baby like it's a joke. Or something you just get on with, stiff upper lips ahoy. They never talk about the fact that it's soul destroying. That it makes it so hard to cope with even the activities of daily living. Of how punishing it is to have a horrendous night, and then still need to get your school aged child dressed, fed, home reader signed and packed off to school. Of having your threenager want and need your attention and guidance when all you want to do is "sleep when the baby sleeps".

When I fell pregnant with the Possum I was afraid. Not of labour or birth or even the cost. What I was most terrified of was the lack of sleep. The way it twists your emotions and thoughts.

I am not depressed but I am so very very tired. I fell into myself yesterday, succumbed to the numbness, but the dawn today, in all its glorious splendour, reminded me that sometime it will be different.

My kingdom for a pillow

I'm so tired I could cry, no wait, I AM crying. Only a few days in and already exhausted. Aside from going out too late last night and going to bed even later (stupid non-pregnant mistake) I am just buggered. Ludicrously and emotionally tired. I have obviously got soft over the holiday period and the extra weight I'm carrying and the hours are literally making me feel like I'm bubbling with exhausted tears that keep wanting to spill over.

I will be fine, I just need to get my groove back but fuck it's hard. I'm just so glad the girls are having a holiday with Nana and Grandad - I could not be even a mediocre parent at the moment. It's hard enough looking after the parasite.

Thank God for takeaway restaurants.

What my days are like

Stressful. A lot.

I start too early and I am on my feet for most of it. In my short breaks I am on here, procrastinating you would assume, but also doing a timed online exam at the same time. I'm going better than expected in the last 2 so I've actually done 4 exams in my lunch break.

My blood pressure is too high because I'm spending my time chasing after doctors to sign my forms like a lovesick teenager runnign after an autograph. I'm exhausted by 3pm but I don't get to go home then. There's at least another hour worth of time consuming, back hurting work and procedure.

I then race for the bus, or walk 3km to pick up the girls, getting home around 5, usually half past. Even though all I want to do is curl up in the corner and go to sleep, the girls haven't seen me all day and they want me. In that "I'm so tired I don't know what I want" kind of way that preschoolers have. Setting them up at the table with pencils and books buys me maybe 20 minutes in which to prepare dinner. I've gone right off meat at the moment so there is a fair whack of preparation involved. I do it like a woman possessed.

Yesterday, for shits and giggles I combined this with being on the phone to Centrelink to sort out a major issue with childcare benefit. When I refused to allow the 2 year old to talk on the phone, I resolved the ensuing tantrum with the delights of bubblewrap. I am nothing if not resourceful.

Bingley gets home around 6, and if he's very lucky (because he's exhausted too) he walks in to the table set and dinner ready. Dinner is actually really nice, because we are all sitting, and we can talk about our day. The Monkey is becoming more conversational as we go on and in between trying to get the Elfling to keep her mouth closed while she's eating we get some entertaining stories from her as well.

After dinner is bathtime and the girls splash around while we lie on our bed and try and stay awake, watching the Elfling teach the Monkey how to do things like draw on the shower door. Which I intend to clean off but never do - so it is a glorious bath crayoned masterpiece.

We then each tackle a baby and brush their teeth, pyjama them and tuck them up in bed with a book, reading aloud for a few minutes, occasionally succumbing to the cries for more books, before lights out. Usually they are so tired they fall asleep before I've reached the light switch.

We then go downstairs and on a good night clear up the dinner plates and turn on the dishwasher feeling smug at the be-Spray and Wiped sparkliness, or as is more common lately, collapse on the lounge room floor watching bad BAD tv and alternately half heartedly expressing the need to get up and clean. It mostly gets done, but I confess, often, it is left there to dry out overnight, so that cursing as we rush through the morning, I try and scrape dinner off plates.

While prostrate in front of the TV I usually have my laptop open so I can answer e-mails, download study modules, finish off minor essays and check my schedule for the next day. Bingley at this stage finds it hard to talk, being upright using up the last reserves of his energy. We both look old and ragged. Sometimes, in a fit of tearful exhaustion I will pick a fight - because at 9pm at night when you know you will be up at 5am, when you're exhausted, when you've had a very long shit day, when you're about as rational as a garden gnome, is a sensible, grown up time to have a "big" discussion. The make up sex is probably worth it though.

I don't enjoy this part of the year. The lead up to the grand finale. Dress rehearsals day and night for the big end of year performance. All that gets me through at the moment is crossing off a day in my diary. Looking at my countdown and seeing how few of these days are left.

Thinking of lying by the pool in our villa in Bali. Of Christmas craft with the girls. Of putting up the Christmas tree and rolling out rumballs. Of making gifts and spending time in the sun. Of coming to the end of each day, and having a surge of panic that I've not done anything all day before realising, gleefully, that there is nothing I'm supposed to be doing.

18 days to go

Things that make me cry

The medication I am on means I can't breastfeed which means the Monkey and I are involuntarily weaning. Every morning she cries to curl up in bed with me for our special cuddles and I have to pass her to the LH while I leak milk and cry.

Because I am so sick I will miss at least a week of uni. This is threatening my ability to pass this rotation (compulsory 100% attendance) and I may not be allowed to graduate in December.

I am taking the maximum amount of panadeine forte to stop the pain and am barely lucid for 4 hours a day.

I ate my first solid food today and can feel it swirling there. My head aches and I cannot have any more tablets.

The Elfling had a nightmare last night and I had to try and keep away from her because I am so terrified of making her ill.

The lovely husband cannot cuddle me in bed because my fevers that make sweat pour off me make me too hot for comfort. He also cannot get ill because he's holding us all together. He's so worriedabout me and about the girls and me graduating. I'm trying to pretend that I'm better for him but he sees it in my eyes.

On Tuesday when I was lying in bed having fluids pour into me being too still and too pale he was so scared. I was so wrapped up in myself I didn't even realise and now I am trying to be strong for him. He made me chicken soup to eat, and has not complained once about the burden on him. This too makes me cry.

Insomnia

I'm never sure what to do on the nights when it's past midnight and the world is sleeping but I am not. Some nights I watch the clock tick slowly and wish myself to feel tired. Other nights, like tonight I am restless, like a runner waiting for the startgun at the beginning of a race. My mind gambols around playfully, toying with topics, a kitten on a mat, swatting away.

I love that I am alone. I love the sounds of silence. The way that I feel like I am stealing something from the night that is all my own that I don't have to share. I love the way that night tastes on my tongue when I don't have anyone around to see it, and I love the way the night sky glitters knowing so few people are seeing what I'm seeing.

Occasionally an unwelcome logical thought like the fact I will likely have to get up out of bed in 5 hours pricks me and makes me uncomfortable. Squirming on my chair a naughty girl waiting to go into the principal's office, I mull it over before something distracts me. Something magic about this witching hour, something about the crackle in the air.

Once upon a time when I lived at college this used to be my hour, when the sensibles had dropped off and gone to bed, I would prowl around outside, rugged up so as not to be deterred by the cold, in search of other nightdwellers. We would meet and have that same knowing look, often gratitude marked on our active faces that we'd found each other. Nights filled with mind expanding conversation. Nights filled with endless games of spirited 500. Nights filled with easy quiet camaraderie as we just gloried in the presence of another.

Something about night just heightens everything. Every encounter becomes more intense, every conversation more meaningful, every playful game more spirited. After midnight is when Phil is at her silky, velvety best. Her laugh, her quick wit, the way her mind snaps, the way she even moves is imbued with something stolen from the inky darkness. I never felt unsure about myself at night, never felt that cloying worry of teenaged girls that they are not enough. I knew Phil was always enough, she practically purred in your belly.

I've tried going to bed early on nights like this. Tried in vain to lie still so as not to wake LH as he softly snores, having failed to keep up with my Voltaire inspired conversations. Have laid there, eyes trained on the sky outside, searching for my favourite star, and felt my soul move even as the body lies prostrate. Felt the cool, gravelly texture of the bricks on the windowsill as I grasp them, and then as it digs into my knees. Felt the grasp of my hand on the edge of the window even though my hands are next to me on the pillow. Heard my footsteps on the ground, smelt that sweet tangy night air, that ephemeral scent that is always gone come morning. Felt the breeze play with my hair as I look around the darkened yard, felt the tickle as a tendril brushes my ear.

Still in bed but outside at the same time, eyes adjusting to the darkness, pupils dilating until they are almost catlike in the dimness. Far off I hear LH snort a little in his sleep as he rolls onto his side, and I feel a guilty pang, as if I need to return back into the room with him, where I am lying slumbering, but I am so light and so free outside. I undo the latch to the gate, lifting the heavy gate as I do so making sure that the bolt does not shout. I marvel at how cold the steel bolt feels under my hand, how the brush of the treated pine gate scratches at the skin of my palm. Imagining is one thing but I can feel it under my palm, and yet I am in bed.

The leaves rustle in the trees ahead, and I look behind to where I should be before venturing further. The first night I did this I was so unsure I stopped at the window, afraid to go past that physical barrier. It is many nights now and I have finally left the yard, and am lost as to what happens next. I listen to LH's breathing for a while, feel the warmth of the quilt on my chest, then go back to where my mind is exploring. I sit down on the concrete steps out the front of our building. The coldness of the concrete invades through my pyjamas and into my thigh in that biting way that cold concrete does. I'm sitting outside my house in my pyjamas watching for falling stars and shivering slightly from the breeze. Theres no one out here with me. I'm all alone. But how can there be anyone with me when my body is still in bed?

I love the secret thrill that courses down my back at the strangeness of this. The power of it, of having such an incredible secret. Like the first time I knew what an orgasm was and knowing no one else knew but that it had been so monumental for me. I'm completely dissociated from my body, feeling sensations that are not possible for me to feel, looking at things that I cannot possibly be seeing. And I'm awake. This is not a dream.

Eventually I become tired of looking for meteors and satellites, and I reluctantly return my mind to my bed, where I'm curled up, hands tucked up on my pillow like a little girl, hair splayed and covers up to my chin. It takes a little while to settle there, to comfortably have my thoughts in the same place as my self, but once we're synchronised, I can finally sleep, my hands curling up under my chin as I snuggle down, wondrous at how far I made it tonight and wondering just how far I will be able to go next time.

Dreams

Let me set the scene. It’s 8am, I’m in bed under 2 feather doonas completely cocooned in warmth. Perfect warmth mind you, that lovely equilibrium between sweltering and shivering. Toasty warm. It’s raining outside, lovely steady rhythmic rain, which is also making the room dark, enhanced by the blockout curtains which are closed. The room is dark and cool and quiet but for the drumming of the rain.

I am asleep but aware of my surroundings at the same time, having what a friend recently explained to me were lucid dreams, holding on tightly to my subconscious and not wanting to break the spell of this spectacularly perfect Saturday morning. To complete the picture, the dream that I am having is a serial dream, one that has been repeated over several nights, and I am now moving into the next chapter of the dream. All week I’ve been wondering where this dream is going and as my hand reaches for the handle of a door I’ve been too afraid to open on my own for two consecutive dreams I start to shiver.

It’s not a frightened shiver though, in this dream I’m not frightened any more. I’m shivering because it is cold, there is a draught in this dark and spooky house that I’m exploring. I’m aware that my feet especially are cold so I look down at them, and they are covered in my docs. So they shouldn’t be cold. The cold is rising, encircling my knees and making my whole body shudder. The way getting out of a hot tub into snowy air makes you involuntarily spasm.

The eerie silence of the dream house has changed as well, not only is it cold, but there is a whispering making the hairs on my neck stand on end. I strain to listen to the words, wondering if they will finally imbue some meaning into this bizarre dream that’s been on my mind for a week, wondering as I open the door what it is in this room, why I was taken here, what I needed to discover. When finally I discern the words clearly…

WAKE UP LAZYBUM MUM AND TAKE ME TO GYMNASTICS

I’m never going to work out what’s in that room.

Somnolence

On Thursday last week, I had a full day at uni and had a presentation to deliver amongst tutes, ward rounds, clinics and visiting patients. It was a full day and I was pretty tired at the end of it. The sort of tired where about the only thing you want to do is come home, collapse in front of the TV or the computer and maybe chat to a few friends on MSN before rolling into bed at about 8pm.

Instead, I headed out to the strip of restaurants in Southbank with their interesting decor that all try to outvie eachother for their "vibe". Their "mabo". At first as I perused the very well priced menu I was planning on a small main and perhaps a fresh juice, maybe even lashing out on a glass of wine, and that I would head home at a decent hour, say 10pm or so for a full and replenishing night's sleep.

What I didn't count on was the exhiliration of being out in the chilly night BY MYSELF and then meeting up with friends. Since one of my online friendship groups imploded a couple of weeks ago, my circle of procrastination and frivolity has shrunk markedly. "Real life" friends are very busy at the moment, and we don't catch up as much as I'd like (ie often lol). So sitting around the redwood bench table I was enjoying myself immensely. I decided I felt like a proper drink and promptly sent off our very efficient and flirtatious waiter to fetch a round of drinks (his efficiency waned significantly throughout the evening which was very vexing considering how much I was enjoying my "refreshments" - but he did keep looking at me and smiling. I am still wondering if I had an errant Monica Lewinsky yoghurt stain somewhere). Throughout the course of dinner I had far too much vodka, and then at the instigation of one of the friends, thought stopping off at one of my favourite early uni day pubs on the way home was a fabulous idea.

By this time it was WELL after 10pm, my original planned home time, and I was happy and languid and liquid, enjoying my night to the hilt. I eventually stumbled home before midnight, stopping briefly to disrobe from my complicated clothing and then collapsing in bed. To be woken about 5 hours (maybe a bit less) later by the howling Monkey.

When I woke up I was completely ataxic and felt very very dizzy. I think if I'd blown into a breath analyser I would not have fallen short of the legal limit, but the effects on my CNS meant that heading to my 8am lecture were interesting to say the least.

Friday was a repeat of Thursday except for the fact that I had the afternoon off so had plans to get home and have a sneaky nap before picking the girls up from childcare. Right up until I got off the bus and got the phonecall to pick the sick Monkey up. So we had the previously mentioned afternoon of ABC kids in front of the fan while I tried to prop myself upright.

Now being as absolutely exhausted as I was, one might suspect that I would have headed to bed nice and early. But somehow I convinced myself that playing computer games was a good idea. Now as mentioned before the games I play are MMORPGs, emphasis on multiplayer and as such I have made a few friends through the game. One friend at least I would consider a very good friend out of the computer and we have had some fantastic chats about shoes and ships and sealing wax. So somehow on Friday night I ended up talking to him until 3amish. I am not sure how, as our conversation skitted off the conventional path around 1am (probably due to my insane tiredness) and then veered into the MAJORLY PISSING ME OFF BUT I CANNOT LOOK AWAY territory shortly thereafter. I was determined not to go to bed angry, and kept attempting to be rational, but at 3am and after not enough sleep irrational may as well be my religion.

The Monkey true to form woke up about 2 hours after I went to bed. Being as Saturday is my morning to sleep in, I got to stay in bed for the next 4 or so hours, but I didn't really sleep, tossing and turning fitfully and not being able to a) relax or b) get comfortable. I was prickly and cactusy all day, not helped by the fact that I was feeling unwell.

It would be assumed then that on Saturday night I would go ot bed early. But I didn't. I ended up on my computer again and at 11pm just as husband was packing up to go to bed, a "new" friend and I were making polite small talk. As you do. The stuff that is really easy to wind down and go to bed. But being me, instead of making polite excuses to go ot bed (of which I had a whole armful pre-prepared) I happened to ask a relatively innocuous but personal question... and got an interesting answer. Which lead to more questions, then more answers, then a philosophical debate, an interesting sidetrack into etymology and a theological discussion, all of which was accompanied by music. Now if you ever want to engage with me when I really should know better then play me some music and ask me about wanky elitist topics. I will be yours until you're done.

At about 1am I happened to notice the time and groaned at the fact that I have absolutely no self control, but somehow the conversation kept going, until at just before 2am we both shut up shop. Now by this stage you could be forgiven to think I would be narcoleptic, but I was actually quite hyped. I LOVE having my brain stroked and I adore meeting people and making new friends. So I crawled into bed, snuggled into LH and hoped that he would be up for relieving me of my excessive hyperactiveness, falling asleep probably around the 3am mark. AGAIN.

On Sunday morning the Monkey woke up just before 5. ie 2 hours sleep. And it was LH's turn to sleep in.

FARRRRK

Sunday mornign is but a blur of sitting propped on the couch, watching interminable episodes of Playschool and fetching drinks of water and milk and making snacks for the babies. At about 10am LH surfaced and I took the opportunity to collapse in bed for 2 hours before having to get up and be a responsible adult and play with my divine children who would be even more superlative if they understood the joy of weekend sleep-ins.

Sunday afternoon we took the kids to see Horton Hears a Who (sidebar go see it, fantastic, one of the best children's movies I've seen in a LONG time) then came home, made dinner and did the bedtime routine. Now SURELY someone as supposedly intelligent as myself would have gone to bed early last night? Well ooer. Maybe not. After reading through lecture notes and getitng distracted by friends on MSN and then sucked into bad Sunday night movie it was already 12 o'clock, and once LH and I had finally finished our nightly routine it was well after 1am.

The Monkey woke at 4:30am.

THREE AND A HALF hours of sleep.

I have tutorials all day and since Thursday morning I have had a sum total of 18 hours of broken sleep. This is from a woman who functions optimally on about 10 hours per night. Who if you give her that amount will wake sleepily and cheerfully to start a new day.

I am cranky and prickly and overall exhausted today and am getting a cold because I'm so run down.

Surely at 26 I should be able to weather this better? Or, surely, at this ripe old age I should have learned some self control.

GAH.

Off to fantasise some more about sleep.

Fantasy

It started this morning, this fantasy of mine, as I was woken from my already broken sleep by LH nuzzling my shoulder hoping to get some predawn "quality time" before the terrible twosome came barrelling through the door. It was hazy at first, like all fantasies - a simple concept, waiting for the details to become apparent to me. As I showered and dressed and got the girls ready for the day I filled in a few of those gaps. Mostly the location, for what is a fantasy without a location?

As I rode the train into the city, standing because there were no more seats, I met the eye of an unnervingly good-looking businessman wearing an even more fabulous smelling aftershave and let the intoxicating aroma work its way into my imaginings. I embellished a bit here and there, and only stopped fantasising when I realised that I had been staring off into space and was attracting attention so blushing furiously I tamped down the daydream and headed off to work.

In between taking histories, reading notes and attending lectures and tutorials I added a few more details. Mostly superfluous to the action, but I have a vivid imagination and the salaciousness of it all was building my desire to fever pitch. As I sat down on the bus to go home this afternoon, I sat next to yet another desirable, this time older man, perhaps in his early 40s with silvered hair and broad shoulders.

Gagging for it as I was, I kept myself sitting upright and avoided looking at his truly magnificent shoulders and arms and resisted "accidently" brushing against him. I was convinced that he could see my thoughts, and a blush burned my ears and kept my colour high, which, along with my guilty face and unshuttered eyes I am sure broadcast to all and sundry on the bus exactly what I wanted to do with this man and his warm, broad chest. He was wearing a nice aftershave as well, and it was not helping matters.

I determinedly closed my eyes, and conjured up images in my head, to distract myself from the inviting expanse of my fellow passenger, and sighed audibly as the true object of my desire swum behind my closed eyelids...

...Soft, pure white sheets that slip like silk over my skin... heaped white pillows, some firm, some very very soft, curtains around the bed, swathed close creating a darkened harem, dappled afternoon light, muted by heavy rain clouds that drop their bounty on a tin roof above...

Somehow I managed to get home, and as I cooked up the very unerotic lamb chops and vegetables (side note I appear to have the only children in the world that don't like mashed potato), I again drifted off...

...On this cool, darkened wet afternoon, in this 4 posted orgiastic dream, LH is stretched out between the sheets, his skin smelling of the same intoxicating aftershave as my new commuter muses...

Knowing that I could fulfil my fantasy soon, I decided to spice it up a bit and mixed my favourite lemon meringue pie hand whipping the egg whites to stiff peaks, thinking of how LH and I could feed eachother the soft chewy, caramelised tops of the meringue before indulging in the best bit...

...Smiling softly but with a wicked naughty girl gleam (as they always do in erotic fantasies), I move in close to the divine smelling LH and kiss him softly on his shoulder, mimicking the actions that started this whole distracting day...

The girls finally in bed, and the lemon meringue pie cooling on the stove, my body heat rising as we reach the climac of my dream, I have it pictured perfectly...

...I nuzzle him until I find that perfect spot, that place that took me a few years to find without error, caress it with my lips before finally moving in, dropping my head my lips parted... LH sighs in anticipation, he's been wanting this almost as much as I have... our bodies are liquid and we've both been thinking of nothing else since the sun groggily rose in the sky in the morning... curling in close my head finally drops, my eyes roll back, and with a slight snort and a hypnogogic jerk I fall into blissful sleep for 8 hours straight...

I've been craving it all day.