Weekly journaling

I have been reading A LOT and this always puts me into the mood to write. So I think I will start a weekly journal here without announcing it on FB. In a wonderful mood today.

My days unfold thusly: There is the first wake, nearly always nine or more hours since going to bed. It is usually my bladder that forces me up into the day. If I am tired, I sleep an hour or two more before really rising. I don't make coffee, instead sipping water and joining the birds outside. The sleep which cloaks me like a soft blanket befogs my mind and body. This is my favorite time of day especially if I get to see the sun rise. After an hour or two I may have a cup of coffee though I have finally decided that I don't like caffeine, the food of the butterflies. The butterflies, coccooned by the sleep will be up and about soon anyway as surely as the wind. For that is what the shattered heart (how else to call it?) has slowly transformed into, the fluttering wings of anxiety. The butterflies rouse slowly, usually sometime in the afternoon and when they do I am grateful that they slept in as long as they did. 

I am getting good at not thinking about the things that energize the butterflies and redirect my thoughts with ease. Such ease as I am constantly surrounded by beauty that only now am I able to appreciate. The shifting shape of a cloud, the cardinal's song as distinctive as its color, the dragonfly wing propellering down from the maple tree staving off the thundering silence of suffering. I turn over lessons in my mind, so many confirmed banalities of life. I should have died. Surely a physical wound as severe would have killed, and I ask myself, "Am I stronger?" It seems impossible that I am still here blessed with the earth to walk upon. 

If it is a work day, I go, grateful for the distraction and practicality of income. If not, I pore through books living other lives where characters are broken and healed in a page or two. (Is that what these last years have been? A couple of pages?) Food. What a glorious gift to feel hungry and satisfy it. I daydream about upcoming meals, enjoying them several times before actually eating them. George stays by my side reading my mind and reminding me of purpose. My husband, an equal wreck to mine, makes his way through the day with me and we have found that cooking together pleases us both. 

I still drink too much. Probably half what I drunk before but I still need help to bed in the evening. Serge didn't drink alcohol for two consecutive days last week. A goal I aspire to when sleep or the lack of it will not severely impact the day after. We spend the evenings together engrossed in this series or that until my eyes start drooping and then my second favorite part of the day arrives, bedtime. And the cloak of sleep that heals and prepares my mind and body for the coming day. I dream but I don't have nightmares. And for the first time in years, life is actually good.