Once again the week is over, children and pets are tucked in safely and the lights burn low downstairs. I still have to make one more trip down there in an hour or two to let Bonham out for his final tour of the yard. Hopefully I will stay up late enough to take him out so that he might let me sleep in a little bit tomorrow. Cross your fingers.
I have been remiss lately in writing. It's been difficult to find time in which my brain isn't fused in panic and my heart doesn't thud with the long slow beat of homesickness and quiet. It's also incredibly painful right now. That Nexcare skin crack liquid I picked up never had a chance. When I'm not scrubbing plaster dust off my hands, I'm scrubbing paint or varathane off them. I also managed to tear them up quite nicely with sandpaper too, so perhaps I'll just use it to maintain the current state of affairs and not hope for miracle cures until the minor constructions are complete. I can't wait to live in a place where this doesn't happen anymore. It hurts. A lot. And that's saying something, coming from the girl with the pain threshold so high you can't even see it while standing on your tiptoes.
Did I mention the real estate agent is coming this weekend? Ergo, finish the house and finish it fast, Bridget.
She's going to cringe anyway. And I'm not satisfied though with a cursory look-through it will be wonderful. Nit-pickers need to go seek new construction, for you won't find perfection in a house built in 1914. No sir.
But I am running out of energy, time, money and heart. I loved this house but it's no longer mine. I called it Winter House, for a time and that was quickly discarded because every mention of winter was followed by my sweetest habit ever, cursing hard and long like a sailor on a yearlong cruise.
Never said I was a lady, now, did I?
The past few nights have seen the return of a very old habit I haven't indulged in since I was eighteen years old. Music to fall asleep by. By the time I was twelve I would go to sleep wit headphones on every single night. It was relaxing. It put me out. I went through thousands of dollars worth of batteries and headphones each year, since I would wake up in the morning with said headphones crushed underneath my shoulders and the player still on, but dead. My parents indulged me, it was maybe one of the very few ways I ever relax, music is.
(I'm not a self-soother. Don't know if you noticed.)
Once I moved in with Cole, the music stopped somewhat, because tuning him out was rude, and we were indulging in our favorite pastime most nights anyhow (shhhhhhhhhhh) and also because we could barely afford to eat, let alone buy batteries for Bridget's walkman.
And you know what? He bought them anyway because did you know? She's not a self-soother. There were always enough double-As when I went to replenish my ears (Oh yes, I'm one of those terrible tuned-out people, don't you know it). I never did go back to putting on music while I fell asleep. Never had to. I could just curl up in his arms, or someone else's and be out like a light.
Once the children were born I learned to sleep with one eye and both defective ears open, listening for cries or needs in the night, ready to jump out of bed and slay imaginary monsters or fetch tissues, inhalers, extra blankets, cats, dropped stuffed bunnies and random assorted socks (which magically fall off Ruth's feet at night and must be excavated from her bed in the morning. Every morning).
So bye-bye forever, night music.
And then two nights ago I hammered the sleep button on the radio, ostensibly to get the weather report for the next day, because the cold is up and down and another stupid snowstorm is coming our way (Fucking prairie. I've had it with you. So long. I won't miss you.) and after the report Snuff came on (love that song) so I left it on to listen for a minute. A minute because twelve minutes and I could feel the homesick/ache-pain of Ben's absence ebbing just a little tiny bit in favor of letting the music wash over me in a way that I always have and most people don't.
(WAIT A SECOND. SOOTHING.)
I don't remember ever turning off the radio that night, I just remember waking up knowing that I didn't spend four hours tossing and turning like I usually do, getting up a million times to see why the security lights have come on in the backyard (owls) and to check the children because my bedroom is a little bit removed from their rooms and I can't hear them anyway so I peek in a lot.
Fluke?
Last night I hit the button again, and the very last things I recall thinking before falling asleep were Oh, good, at least they're not playing Green Day and Josh Homme's voice really does nothing for me.
It's positively magical again to drift off to some metal-light, since I have to acquiesce and listen to bands and songs that aren't really up my alley, although the more I think about it, the more I see the alley of my future revealing some sort of CD-playing clock radio instead of this hilarious twenty-year parade of substandard Sony Dream Cubes. Imagine picking my own music to drift off to, much like the rest of the planet has probably done for at least the past decade or more. I wouldn't know. Unless Research in Motion puts it out I try not to pay attention.
I could fall asleep listening to music on my BlackBerry but killing bluetooth headphones is expensive, the phone would have to be in close proximity to tiny white dog who would love to eat it and also it would have to be charging and in case you snoozed through the first half of my post, my house was built in 1914. I don't believe the one plug and questionable power circuitry (or whatever the hell that flicky-switch in the basement that's always turning off is called) can handle the power.
Who am I kidding? It definitely can't.
Some moments I am stunned and surprised that the house was retrofitted with a toilet. Though at other times, what with the extensive woodwork and stained glass gracing the halls and various rooms, I can't ever understand why there aren't two toilets, or even three. Let's just be decadent all the way around, shall we? (Go big or go homing angel, as August likes to tell me)
In any case, I don't get to pick my music while I sleep so God help the first programmer who plays 21 Guns while I'm trying to fall asleep and tomorrow hopefully my bloody fingertips and aching soul will be up for another day of sanding/scrubbing/painting/cleaning.
Don't feel sorry for me though. Jesus, please. All of this work and effort and endurance and fortitude and lessons in self-soothing bring me one step closer to not needing music to help me fall asleep.
It brings me that much closer to Ben.
Goodnight. My fingers hurt now.
