Monday 28 October 2013

A Medly

Jay was here for a couple of days last week, and he stayed with me.

At the time, I would have told you that this exhausted me, because when you're used to sleeping alone, it's disruptive to have someone in bed with you again.

So I was physically tired. And still kind of am, seeing how sleep for me is now a super picky thing and a couple of nights of disrupted sleep mean a week of feeling like I'm trying to catch up.

Anyhow.

Now that he's gone, I'm missing the physical presence of him being here.

Not particularly in bed (I mean, well, you know) because once I'm asleep I'm asleep, but I mean knowing that there would be another person coming home later.  Or someone to watch a show with that evening, or someone to have a conversation with, share my day with, have a laugh or ten with.

It's a reminder that living alone, while it has wonderful moments and benefits, it also has things that I miss.

I don't know what role Jay will be playing in my life a year from now... half a year from now... a decade from now, and I'm not sure I have an answer to who or what Jay is in my life right now.

It was interesting, in an unrelated kind of way, one night when Jay had told me he'd be back quite late due to a function he had to attend.

I woke up with a terrible headache in the middle of the night and noticed he wasn't yet home, even though it was later than he'd thought he'd be done.

I took an Advil for my head, and drank some water, but I also worried.

I noticed that I'd accidentally pulled the chain closed on the door and I worried that Jay had come home, not been able to come in because of the chain, and gotten mad and left.

I worried that he'd fallen for someone at the event and was staying out with her doing who knows what.

I worried that his phone had died.

I worried that he had gotten drunk and was passed out somewhere.

And at whatever o'clock in the morning that it was, all of these things seemed real and reasonable.

I texted him, just a "hey" and he got back to me right away.  "Things running late, am hoping to leave in the next half hour."

I couldn't sleep, the headache was not a good one, so I stayed up and read.

When he got home, I was relieved.

Now that he was back, all the worries I'd been convinced were real seemed silly.  Why would he have gotten mad about the door?  Jay doesn't really get mad, especially not at things like that.  He would have just knocked, or buzzed, or something.  So what if his phone had died.  And Jay's not a drinker, so the passing out drunk was a silly thought.  The meeting someone?  Well, I guess that's just something that's going to worry me until I find a new boyfriend... but why did I think it would happen that night, randomly?  I don't know.

I told him all the things I'd worried about.

He pointed out that none of them had happened.




I know that the middle of the night is not a good time for worries.  That everything seems darker and worse and like things are just going to go badly when it's the middle of the night.

When Jay was living and working on the other side of the world we had a lot of conversations that went into or started in the middle of my night.  And those conversations were not always happy, positive ones.

I'm lucky that I don't currently do a lot of thinking in the middle of the night, but I'll have to remember that it's not my best time.

And I'll have to remember that when I'm in those dark moments, whether it's literally in the dark of night, or just in a dark place that my brain comes up with things and thoughts that are silly.

And that there's no point in thinking them through.

That I just need to wait and breathe and find out what's happening, rather than inventing all the things that are maybe going wrong.

If I could learn that life lesson?

I think I'd be a lot happier.