I was shocked when I looked at the clock and realized it was 2:00am. I couldn't sleep. The steady noise produced by the box fan seemed to solidify the air -suffocating me. Every few seconds the chain from the ceiling fan struck the metal casing that shields the bulb, acting as a cymbal in the symphony of my insomnia. I wasn't tired.
Usually, when I can't fall asleep I tell myself (imagine) a story just to cast a shadow over the thoughts that keep me wired. I always fall asleep before a plot unfolds. Sometimes I read a book and sometimes I watch television, but hubby was asleep and I was scared to move.
I feel like my mind has stagnated and it's because I have not allowed thoughts to flow, naturally. I fill up my waking hours with purposeful thoughts or some type of digital entertainment, even when I'm doing "work," which should free my mind to wander. As I fall asleep at night I try to corral the stream of thoughts that run through my mind. A wandering mind during consciousness is like entering dream-state during sleep - both are important to our mental health. I haven't allowed my mind to be free.
I wondered if controlling the thoughts of children five days a week was healthy for intellectual growth. I wondered if it was healthy for me, so I tried to think of nothing - just to see what would surface.
I pushed my thoughts out of my mind and sometimes caught myself slipping into sleep. This awareness quickly woke me up and I was back to the humming of my room.
Box fan and ceiling fan - there was a rhythm. I could stack it like blocks in my mind.
Maybe someone was mowing their yard? I was standing in the tall grass back at my childhood home admiring the gray water. I looked to my left and I noticed that a stranger was using a push mower to mow our fourteen acres along the bay. My "mee-mee" always mowed the grass on her riding lawnmower. I felt sorry for the stranger but there was a nice breeze.
Someone whispered in my ear that my childhood home was now for sale and I wanted to buy it. In real life the two-story country home on the water I grew up in would never be affordable - even if I had a job. I knew hubby would never move back to Port Lavaca, even if to live out in the country and on the water.
I turned to go up the hill towards the house but I was standing in a grass-less unfamiliar pasture looking back at an unfamiliar one-story small white house. I had never seen it before, but it felt like home.
Little Tykes toys littered the yard. I imagined myself reading a book on a blanket under the sun. I wanted to have a family from Canada come and stay for a few days. I thought about how I would approach the subject with my husband. "They are free-range hippies."
When I woke up I was sad. There is a part of me that I can never have. I miss the house I grew up in. I feel like a part of me is still there. I feel sorry for whoever lives in that house now. I haunt that house in my dreams.
I am the ghost.
*****
This song reminded me of this dream:
