Awake !

My eyes snap open. My first groggy sensation is the dull ache in my right shoulder. My night time companion has failed me again. She knows that she is supposed to press against me, comforting me, and keep me from rolling too far over on my shoulder. Was it something I said that struck the wrong chord; a perceived slight ? Indifference to my condition ? Did I unknowingly get too familiar in the middle of the night and she wasn't in the mood to be poked ? Sometimes she just lays there like a pillow !

I roll to my back, realizing that nature has put in an early morning alarm to recycle. The room is very dark, the way I like to sleep. Black plastic sheeting covers my bedroom window, efficiently doing its job of shielding me from the bright porch light placed considerately right outside.

Slowly, I sit up and drop my legs over the side of the bed. I look at the time on my cell phone. 4:11 am. Sudden disorientation. The dark that allows me to sleep better, also robs me of any visual clue on awakening. Where did I sleep tonight ? The trazadone that enables me to sleep worry-free contributes to my confusion at this hour. Am I in my own bed, in my cozy little apartment? Am I at the house? While auto-pilot can negotiate me safely with my eyes closed to either recycling facility, the paths are quite different. Turn on the light stupid. Remember that time early on in this adventure, when you you carefully took the required three steps to the right to avoid the bed's corner post, so thoroughly rehearsed over 20 years, and walked straight into the closed, mirrored closet door of your apartment. Turn on the light, stupid !

At least this once, I practice what I preach, and gratefully recognize the confines of my little abode. I stand up, squinting against the light, and take care of business, wanting to get back under the covers before I wake up too much. I return, switch off the light, and it feels even warmer under the covers after the short trip has cooled my skin. Mmmmm, I love falling back asleep even more than falling asleep.

Too late. The fog is lifting, and ghostly apparitions start to materialize out of the mist, like Ingrid Bergman walking up to Humphrey Bogart near the end of Casablanca. As the images come into focus, they start to queue up chaotically, menacingly, like the 3:00 am crowd in front of Best Buy on Black Friday. There's Perry's email to Joe about a certificate, and reissuing that bond. Then the decaying bottom panels of the garage door, and that rep from Bank of America seeing if we want to refinance yet. Then the pastor, holding the hand of Cynthia, next to Sue, who can't hold hands with anyone as she carries a sign that says "How did that make you feel" followed by a gaggle of people all with the same name tag that says "Relationship Issues". Mike and his lawyer. Unseen people still in the mist shouting something about 10 salted and two plain to stand 115, and the idiot who stacks his greasy pans on top of the clean ones. I can see that the line continues, but it is increasingly shrouded by the fog once you get past "greasy". I have a strong twist in my gut that says the line is long and antsy.

Damn it. I stand on my toes to peer over the top of this crowd, trying to find a friendly face, or someone holding up a poster of a nice beach or mountain stream. I strain to hear a beautiful guitar melody floating on the wind, but it's drowned out by the loud murmur of the crowd, and which is getting threateningly close to a roar.

Nope, there will be no more sleep this morning. it's now 4:45 and I've looked at this mob long enough. I get up, resigned to my fate for another day. And I vow, again, to deal with these things and people clamoring for my attention one-at-a-time, and I remind myself I'm only human, and not alone in this condition.

Oh, but there is one significant difference this morning. I got up, and made a cup of coffee, and sat down to write this little story. Looking at it in black and white, static, quiet and clear, makes the day a little less scary.