Survival

You know what? I am kind of doing okay without her, that chubby baby of mine.

It’s a little like realizing you have a third arm, one you haven’t been using. It’s not that I’ve been missing it, because I didn’t even remember it was there, but now that I have it back things are easier. They get done faster. And this third-arm state isn’t something I really want to continue forever- or even for a few more days- because as much as it’s helpful it also feels strange and cumbersome and I’m used to having my hands full. The arm just sort of sits there, uncomfortable and ill-at-ease with the silence. 

I found myself turning on the TV every time I was in my hotel room, which is uncharacteristic for me because typically I hate the background-noise nature of the thing. They’re always on, in hospital waiting rooms and restaurants- even in the kids play areas on the ferry. It drives me nuts how people pause mid-sentence and stare open-mouthed. We become absorbed and entranced in the screen like moths to a flame- helpless! I do it too – how can you not be seduced by the flickering lights and catchy content?

So usually I avoid it but this week I think I needed the noise, it felt so strange to be sitting here swamped in my own thoughts and the sound of faint conversation passing in the hallway. 

 

Just in case you are feeling some sort of violent rage-envy at all of this talk about helpful superfluous limbs and sweet silence, I would like to inform you that I have a hotel room with not one, but two giant comfortable beds that even (inexplicably) have remote controls to adjust their firmness up or down, and yet I slept a grand total of ELEVEN hours in the last two nights. 

I lay there and could not fall asleep. It was the rudest thing ever and the more I thought about it the more anxious I got, “Madeleine! You’re WASTING it! Look at this bed! Feel these sheets! There’s no one else here! SLEEP, DAMMIT, YOU FOOL!”

But sleep wouldn’t come. So I tried tricking myself and decided to stay up to read – hoping I’d fall asleep mid-sentence as so often is the case these days. Of course tonight is the night I managed to finish about six chapters before I threw the book on the ground in a fit of rage and then lay there, seething, willing myself to sleep out of sheer spite. 

My days have been packed and my brain is at capacity. I am so glad I was able to come, but oh, guys, I am so ready to go home.