introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the perks of your single bed in the morning - 25 june 2014 "give me touch 'cause i've been missing it / i'm dreaming of / strangers / kissing me in the night just so i can feel something."~daughter i am jones' confused dumb girl-heart these last few days. i've been wrapped up in my head. my imagination has been a little wild. too much time in those woods mapping out magical stories, perhaps. so i soaked my summer feet in warm milk and water. i scrubbed them with coconut oil and sugar. last night, i fell fast asleep. it is glum today but the air smells and tastes sweet like flower petals. there was a summer storm this morning before the sunrise and i woke, startled and confused to find that i was by myself but for sam. i doubt he heard the rain at all as he snored and sniffed contentedly in his deep old-dog sleep. i turned the pillow over and, with my face on the cool cotton, i wept and eventually fell asleep again. this is a hormonal emotional junkyard, this pregnancy thing...everything feels. with all of the focus i've put on getting settled here, getting prenatal care, researching parenting methods and lactation information, getting sammy's surgery taken care of, making sure i'm getting as much exercise as i can, planning nutrient-dense meals, and generally taking care of my health and this little one growing so rapidly now inside of me...with all of this focus, i was dumbfounded in the last few days. it seems i've tripped over my own loneliness a little. all those years and years ago, i learned to sleep in the middle of the bed after he'd left for good. sleeping in the middle helped me learn to sleep alone again when there were no ankles with which to tangle mine, when there wasn't another heartbeat pulsing next to me, the breathing of another to lull me to sleep. it was how i learned to self-soothe and be alone because it is at bedtime and when i wake in the morning that i am most lonely. more recently, when it was over between us, i asked sean to start sleeping in his own room. i slept in the middle of the bed more for the freedom and relief of knowing that the worst was over. i've enjoyed and even loved my bed to myself and what girl wouldn't? i get to adjust both of the sleep numbers, guys. but i've been sleeping on half of my bed lately and it's peculiar to wake up on one side, to turn over, and to find no one. it isn't that i need someone to be there, to be clear. i feel safe here, now. when i first moved here and ian kept saying that he was going to come here, there were nights that i'd wake up sure that he was trying to get in the house. just nightmares. i know that this is my home now and i've gotten used to the sounds and creaks of the place. it isn't that i need someone. i want someone. i miss having someone so close, someone to hold me and for me to hold. i miss the proximity and warmth of knowing that someone i love is sleeping and breathing right there with me. most nights, i shake it off and it is nothing. i nest in my pillows and fall asleep, usually exhausted from the day. i was just nestling in and turning out the light the night the phone dinged to alert me: a message from a stranger. now, i don't know why i even bother with that old online profile for so many reasons. first, there is a baby on the way...should i be thinking about trying to date right now? i don't see why not but it's going to take a hell of a lot of patience and communication to make something like that work...which is a statistically-low chance. which brings me to second: the messages that i get aren't always welcome ones. i have always felt like it was polite to write back to folks who have been brave enough to messaged me because that's the point of the whole project, right? but within minutes or days, it usually gets too weird, too fast, or both. i'm polite about it and it usually degrades to some dude calling me a bitch or cunt...and i just rest assured that i made the right choice and quickly. this particular first message was friendly and warm. and he was pretty handsome, america...like probably too handsome for me. but hey...hello, sailor! he seems kind and funny and sweet. in truth, i know only a little bit about him. i have a million things i want to know about him. he knows a hell of a lot about me but i talk too much, probably...the solitude makes me talk too much. trading pictures here and there is new for me. there is something about his face, though. i wonder if it smiles? i aim to find out, i think. i have a million things i want to know about him but i'm waiting because i know that i'm too plugged in to the internet as it is. i know that's a big part of what he has to do, too...i don't want to be the reason he doesn't go for walk. so i'll get around to my millions of questions in time...because i feel like i'm not in any hurry, anyway. "well, it's fine if you are trying to date someone there. you deserve to be happy. i can't magically transport myself there, so you have to do what you have to do." but that's the thing. i'm just not in a hurry. i'm not even looking around because i don't see the point. the few bangor fellas i've talked to have either been creepers or, in the case of the one pretty normal guy, wasn't ready for dating and probably not even ready for meeting a new friend. i've just kind of given up on it right now. and hey, these messages that keep coming every day...they make me happy. they make me feel a little bit less lonely. he's got a warm heart and an interesting brain so...i look forward to eventually meeting him in the real world whenever and if ever that plays out. and if there's a lady there that drops from the sky, i hope he goes for it...because that kind of fella deserves someone good. yeah, i've got a million questions and i don't know that much about him. i know he makes me smile a lot and the picture of his face makes me catch my breath. all those mushy cliches. lately, just knowing that he's out there at all makes it a little easier to fall asleep. i'm thankful, for however long it lasts...and determined to sleep comfortably whether i wake up in the middle or on 'my side' of the bed. xo, jones ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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