Yesterday evening was pleasant. My husband did something with steaks and butter that was amazing, and we watched a movie that was funny. I didn’t even catch myself checking the clock over and over again, to see how much time was left. (I do this during almost every movie I watch, and it is probably as annoying to others as it is to me that geeeeeeeez when will this movie eeeeeeeeend, come ON.) At some point after the movie I started to feel tense, and had the overwhelming familiar feeling that I just wanted the day to end, that I wanted to give up on the day before it took a bad turn. The urgency of coming panic, best avoided.
After we turned out our bedside lamps, J felt asleep quickly. I did not. The house felt hot, the air felt thick and heavy. My foot would not be still, my eyes would not close, and then I was having the same old panic attack, once again. I got out of bed, I went into the bathroom and sat on the closed lid of the toilet seat and tried to breathe. I cried. I stopped crying. I walked into the living room, I sat on the arm of the couch with a lamp on beside me. The curtains glowed. Jelly Roll sleepily watched me as I sat, facing the kitchen, unable to see much because I hadn’t bothered to put on my glasses. My feet know their way around. I cried more, I felt heavy with hopelessness, I did not sit up straight, I curled under the ridiculous sadness. I gulped, I stood. I walked into the kitchen, I stood in the dark with the white blanket in my arms–the white blanket that I fell asleep under, once, with a black pen still in my hand.
The pen leaked on the white blanket, the black ink staining a large portion of one corner. After I washed it, the stain had faded to a coppery greenish brown, ugly and uneven. I try to use a different type of pen in bed now; I have stained many blankets the same way. I am careless in my habits.
It felt very important to turn on the light over the stove, but I could not remember which switch was the light and which was the fan. I tried to remember, I pressed my fist to my forehead, but I could not remember this thing that I do automatically every day. I didn’t want to make a mistake, I didn’t want the fan to buzz loudly, wake up the dogs and my husband. I finally flipped on the overhead light–it was a weighty decision–and squinted, my face two inches from the switches to make out the words.
I pushed in the switch labeled “light” slowly with one finger and turned off the overhead.
I carried the blanket back to the bathroom, I was crying again, my breathing fast and stupid, I opened the medicine cabinet and looked at all the bottles, I noticed, holding them close to my face, that the labels have wrinkled and faded from shower humidity.
I opened the Xanax, I took out one, I put away the bottle and was careful to shut the medicine cabinet quietly.
I walked back to the kitchen, I opened the refrigerator door. I squatted down, the white blanket bundled against my torso, with the pill in my hand, and pulled out a strawberry soda. I opened the can, I took the pill, I drank half the soda while squatting in front of the open appliance. I was close enough to my feet, while crouching, to see them a little clearly.
They looked sort of pink, sort of bony, sort of squishy. Mottled and foreign. Small.
I stood up and went back to the bedroom. I laid down. I didn’t get it together. I started crying harder, chokingly. I got up and went back to the bathroom, to sit on the toilet lid.
Bathrooms become sanctuaries in times of anxiety and sadness. Small and warm, every inch familiar, a place of cleansing, a place of things ritualistic and human. I blew my nose over and over, I tried to breathe slowly. I heard my husband call out asking what was wrong. I used toilet paper to blow my nose. It felt like sand on my skin. I pressed it against my swollen eyelids; it still felt like sand. It was crumpled moistly in my fist; I hated it.
I wondered when I became this sad selfish person. I thought I hated myself, that it was foolish to believe I am of any consequence in such a big universe in such a giant vat of time. Insignificant, insignificant.
I walked back to the bedroom, I laid back down. I dropped the white blanket on the floor beside the bed. My husband asked why I was crying, and I said I didn’t know. We wrapped our arms around each other, I calmed down and tried to breathe with a plugged nose. I closed my burning eyes and tried to sleep, but my mind kept flying to strange oceans with big black rubbery whales and snow, a place where a whale, a hippopotamus, and a horse hung precariously from rusty chains against the side of an icily cold ship. I opened my eyes and stared up at the ceiling. We held hands.
I thought very clearly, “This room is the north pole.”
I said to my husband, “What should I think of? To fall asleep.” “Umm. Think about rabbits.” “Rabbits?” “A classroom of rabbits, with a teacher rabbit, and student rabbits.”
“With a chalkboard?” “Mmhmm.” “Does the teacher rabbit rap their knuckles with a ruler when they’re bad?” “No, of course not. Nice rabbits.”
So I thought about a hollow tree, full of baby student rabbits, with apples and brown leather bookstraps and slate boards. I thought about acorns and white letters against dark green, and although I still felt sad, it was better than the north pole. It was brown and orange and white and black, it smelled warm and earthy. I fell asleep.
This morning we took out the dogs; I apologized for keeping my husband awake, he reminded me once again that it didn’t’ matter. I looked up and the sky was such a fiery light shade of gray blue, and the rising sun was just tinging the bottom of the sky with orange. Everything seemed gray and still. The trees’ branches, limbs, were black black black, inky fingers silhouetted against the white-gray. They reached out and were perfect, and I noticed they were crawling with buds. Birds were flying close; squabbling. I couldn’t stop looking at the black branches against the light sky; I didn’t feel as sad. Tired, a bit numb, a big worn, but okay.
I am not as important as black branches against the sky. In the morning, I am glad.
Love,
black sheeped
