And Then I Went Back to Bed

Found this in my drafts folder.  I’d written it on August 10th, but never posted it.  Don’t know why.  Anyway, figured I’d share….

I haven’t been sleeping well. 

There’s a lot on my mind, and it gets kind of hushed during the day when I’m busy with other, more immediate things, but then at night it senses the silence, the lack of motion, and, like a baby in my belly, it starts kicking.  Hard.

So I woke up sometime after three this morning.  Couldn’t get back to sleep, so I got up in a feeble attempt to flee the babble in my brain.

I didn’t escape them, of course.  They came along for the ride.

I went downstairs and switched on the tv more as an aural distraction than because there was anything to watch…and I puttered.  I folded laundry, started another load, wished my cousin a happy birthday on facebook, read stuff online, added a rosary posting to my etsy store, and tried to feel like I was accomplishing something good.  Something to make getting up worth it.  Not sure if I accomplished that or not.

I did get drowsy again, though, and at about quarter to six, when I couldn’t form intelligent sentences for another etsy upload, I figured I could go back to sleep for an hour or so.

So up I went.  I fell asleep, wrapped in a blanket (the fan was on in the room because Bill and I have different air temperature requirements to sleep well, at least in the summer), and dropped deeply into a dream.

Bill and I had gone…somewhere.  To something festive, it seemed…a wedding, a party…somewhere away.  And during the course of the festivities, whatever they were, Bill ended up hanging out with a bunch of guys that were there and I ended up heading back to whatever room we were staying in that night.  The next morning, I texted him because I didn’t know where he was, and then somehow I was home, in the basement, and I found his cell phone there, plugged into the charger.

So he didn’t even have it with him.  And I didn’t know how to get in touch with him, or where he was, or anything.  I worry all the time.  Even in dreams, apparently.

And then, I heard his voice.

It was saying “Jayne!  Jayne!  It’s trash day!”

I swam up, up, up through my unconsciousness and emerged, still wrapped in a blanket, still foggy-brained.  I opened an eye and looked at him.

“I heard the trucks,” he said urgently.

So my body rolled out of bed, dragging my sluggish brain with it, and we hurried downstairs to get our trash and recycle bins to the curb so we wouldn’t be stuck with smelly garbage fermenting in the sun for the next week. 

I tilted the gray garbage bin back on its wheels and started rolling it toward the street.  Bill was behind me, hopefully planning to carry the lawn bags, which were still wet from recent rain.  I hate carrying wet lawn bags – I’m always expecting them to break, and I really don’t want to have to deal with that.

Anyway, I’m also thinking, which week is it, green or blue?  Green is paper recyclables, blue is bottles and cans and metal things.  I’m pretty sure last week was green, but I scan the street to see what the other, more organized, neighbors have done.

Hmmm.

I see one gray bin over there.  But nothing else anywhere. 

It crosses my mind that everyone else on our street is SO efficient that not only did they put their bins out the night before, but they also ran outside IMMEDIATELY after the trucks ZIPPED THROUGH and returned the bins to wherever they keep them the rest of the week.

But that made no sense.  More foggy thinking…it IS Wednesday, right?

And then just as the dim bulb in my brain was starting to glow a bit, Bill said “Monday holiday!”

Rhode Island is the only state still observing “Victory Day.”  It used to be VJ day – Victory over Japan – but then a lot of states stopped celebrating it and then I guess the name got changed to sound more PC. 

Anyway.  Aha.  Monday holiday.  That meant our trash pickup would be…tomorrow.

I just looked at Bill, who kind of smiled and said “Sorry.”

I wanted to glare, but I laughed instead and headed back inside, up the stairs, and back into my blanket cocoon. 

I figured it might make for a good story later.

Comments

[Donna B.]

... you know what is REALLY weird?

I remember reading this post already...

... ... ... CUE THE EERIE MUSIC!!! :O

[Jayne]

Not weird at all, Donna...maybe I posted it with a different title? Or something? Sigh. Im terrible at keeping track of things sometimes.

[roo]

I think I read it too! Unless running out with your trash/recyclables to catch the truck happens a lot. (When I lived in Jersey, it was practically every other week!)

It's a good story. I enjoyed it the second time through. :)