Edit to add after my proofreading: This blog post is mostly for me to get the thoughts in my head out. To validate my own feelings instead of waiting for someone else to validate them for me when, in order to do that, you have to actually speak out loud to someone about it. But who has that kind of time? And who wants to listen to someone complain so much and then give me the satisfaction of telling me I’m a good person. Sometimes? We just need to hear that. And sometimes? It’s ourselves we need to hear it from the most in order to believe it.
The hours between 2am to 4am seem to comfort me these days.
The world is quiet, for the most part. People sleeping & dreaming. I imagine the good parts of that scenario —
- sleeping next to someone you love, maybe even being held by them while you sleep.
- sleeping with your favorite fur baby, or maybe even a stuffed fur baby. Something from many moons past that brings you comfort.
- sleeping soundly alone, peaceful.
I imagine all these people waking up in the morning feeling refreshed from some solid REM snoozes.
But then there are others with troubled minds and heavy hearts. I’d be remiss if I didn’t think about those in that scenario —
- sleeping, but having a PTSD nightmare flashback that jolts you awake shaking
- completely unable to sleep; body & mind both equally riddled with anxiety
- sleeping restlessly out of fear for your domestic/home situation
I imagine all these people waking up in the morning feeling more exhausted than the day before. Impatiently waiting, begging, for relief from your mind or circumstances to come around..
And sometimes I’m reminded that, at one point in time or another, I’ve found myself in each one of those situations.
Lately, I find myself in a new battle with my allusive friend Sleep. So much so that I told my esthetician who did my facial tonight that I truly felt like I finally unclenched my jaw for the first time in 2 years. And I meant it in the most literal sense I can possibly explain. And actually, if I really think about it – it’s not a new sleeping pattern that’s all fucked up & making feel crazy. It’s an old battle that’s reared it’s head again. The only difference is the last time it only lasted for 5 months. I’m a year and a half in – and I’m tired. I am fucking tired. And yet I can’t sleep soundly to save my life most nights. What a bunch of bullshit…
Anyways.
In 2020 I moved back home to Kansas to take care of my grandmother in her final moments on this earth. She stuck around to bless us all with her presence much longer than any of us thought. She raised me for the first couple of years of my life & it was my pleasure to be able to repay that and thank her for that by caring for her as long as I could.
It was one of the hardest moments of my life up to that point. She would wake up every couple of hours, like clockwork, needing to use the bathroom or needing a drink or couldn’t sleep or was scared she was alone and needed to know someone else was there. She was feisty and sassy and graceful and beautiful. I love her, and I loved her, more than words can describe.
But that exhaustion was something I’ll never forget. It drained the life out of me – almost literally.
And then the Pandemic hit.
My dad has MS & my mom has a 27 page-long list of health issues. I’d been trying balance helping both them & my grandma out when I decided for the sake of everyone’s health around to just take care of my parents because they lived so far outside of civilization and were high risk for COVID — but I wasn’t, so I could help (don’t worry, my badass & selfless cousin took care of Grandma). I went home in May 2020. She passed in April 2021.
Fast forward to August of 2023.
My dad broke his right ankle (his good leg, his other leg he doesn’t have any control over due to MS) unloading groceries. He was bedridden for awhile and then could use a wheelchair. My mom can’t drive and has a bad back so transportation capabilities between the two of them was effectively impossible. I came home for a few weeks then & helped them out. When they seemed to find some sense of balance to maintain, I went back to Vegas.
Back to my life. The life I’ve spent the last 10 years growing & building & cultivating something beautiful for myself. Something that I could be proud of, not ashamed of like my life I’d been leading in Kansas.
A couple of months later I find out my mom’s in the hospital & my dad’s all alone & keeps falling trying to get to his wheelchair. I jumped into action to help. And I went back.
My mom came out of the hospital & that experience a different person. Someone who, on a good day, can maintain a little bit of meaningful conversation, but most days it’s just short responses to questions, eating nothing but candy & sunflower seeds, and drinking Diet Coke. She rarely will shower or change her clothes.
I went back home on Christmas Day in 2023 after a fight (nothing unusual considering the majority of my childhood was me ‘not doing something right’ and I wasn’t needed/wanted around). But a month and a half later I was called by the local EMS to come back and help. My dad had been in and out of the hospital so much from falls that bills were going unpaid, trash was everywhere in the house because they couldn’t take it to the dumpster, neither one of them had been bathing or doing anything that could resemble a sense of ‘taking care of themselves’, and the overall sanitary conditions were disgraceful. So I went back. That was April 2024.
“One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.”
― Shannon L. Alder
I have been coming back to Vegas every couple of months since then, for a period of about a month to see my cats, my friends, my office, to play the sports I love, and then go back.
I go back to my little caregiving role where I’m staying in the house I raised myself in, living alongside the same parents who told me in December I ‘wasn’t needed’ and I’m trying to make sure they survive in. Sleeping in my childhood room where I spent most nights watching the Pagemaster on VHS or the LOTR extended cuts on DVD to keep me from crying until I got to go to school the next day and get away.
All of that while still somehow maintaining a full-time job for the firm is just celebrated 10 years at. It looks a little like this:
- I roll out of bed for work & do my job until 5pm, sometimes 7pm.
- I make dinner for my parents. Usually it’s met with rave reviews by my mom and a “it’s okay I guess” from my dad
- I usually don’t eat at this time. The adrenaline and/or stress from the day causes me not to be hungry a lot.
- Make sure my dad gets to bed safely
- Chug a few glasses of wine
- Heat up my dinner (or just have a Kroger-branded homemade version of an adult LunchAble because that’s the only thing my perpetual state of anxiety will let me enjoy)
- Turn on some show or open a book or doomscroll until I can’t keep my eyes open anymore.
And then..
Alarm goes off in the morning.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Miraculously, I’ve been able to maintain some sort of social life on top of that cycle.
To those of you who are reading this & have been a part of that reprieve – I cannot tell you how thankful I am for you. For your grace when I change my mind because even though I want to have human interaction with someone other than my parents but I also just *cant*.
For you continuing to invite me – despite that.
For you continuing to love me – despite that.
For you continuing to be there even when I get so frustrated & stressed out that I take it out on you and believing me when I say I’m sorry.
I owe you all so much gratitude.
I couldn’t do this without you.
Me to me at this point: What the hell was I even trying to talk about in the first place?
I got lost in a tangent of thoughts as I was writing. But those of you who read these silly ramblings are used to that. That said, maybe it was important for me to write that all out for a few reasons:
- To remind myself that I am doing a good thing for people who need my help, even if they don’t deserve it, and especially if they don’t deserve it because they were shitty parents. To be clear: I’m not saying they are bad people. I’m saying their parenting choices were lacking in many ways. IYKYK.
- To extend the same grace and kindness and love that I so freely give to so many others to myself because this shit is HARD. And that it’s okay to be tired & frustrated.
- To remind myself that even when it doesn’t feel like I’m doing a good job (at fucking anything really) that I’m juggling a lot of balls, and most of those balls are glass, and you can’t drop any of the glass balls because if they break the consequences will be devastating. And that’s a lot for any one person to juggle, let alone to juggle it mostly on their own
- And to hopefully put it in perspective for some who may wonder why I’m distant, or I don’t reach out enough, or sometimes I’m a bitch, or constantly anxious – my brain has been living in a never ending cycle of Fight or Flight. The part of my brain that’s supposed to help me regulate my emotions & my decisions has been on vacation in Maui for over a year. Lucky bitch.
Like I said, the hours between 2am and 4am comfort me these days. Because this is when the world sleeps. When I am by myself & don’t feel required to pour out of an empty cup into someone else’s empty cup. Not that anyone is specifically requiring me to do that – that’s not what I mean. I’ve been conditioned since I was very young to feel the need to manage everyone around me. But between the hours of 2am and 4am? I can dissociate into some TV drama and pretend I’m the protagonist who gets the girl in the end & lives happily ever after.
Or, more specifically in this very moment, write all the shit in my head I’ve been wanting to tell someone who will sit & listen long enough for me to get through it all (most likely with a few or a lot of tears) & just say “you’re doing great and it’s all going to work out and pay off in the end” without feeling like there’s something they’re obligated to provide to me after a vent session like this. To be heard, to be appreciated, and to be supported in that moment. And it’s always been a helluva lot easier for me to write it out in perfectly imperfect sentences vs. trying to formulate all these thoughts into coherent out-loud phrases.
And for those of you who do listen to the highlights when we talk/get together, who just hold me because that’s all I need in the moment, or sit with me in silence – thank you for doing exactly that. I’m so grateful for my tribe.
Anyways.
The hours between 2am and 4am offer a quiet comfort to process my shit before I try and sleep for the night. Which I don’t seem to be doing much of either lately but hey — we are surviving, not thriving. And that’s okay.
Life is hard.
Communication is hard.
Relearning who you are & loving yourself through that transformation is hard.
And if anyone resonates with anything I’ve said (doesn’t have to be the same situations) — you’re not alone. You can do this. It sure as shit won’t be easy, but you can.
And you will.
And I can, too.
And so I will.
Goodnight, earthlings. I love you.
Kansas to Viva 