Sleeping

One of the challenging things about my healing is that my mind and body seem to be working at different rates. And not what I would have expected: my mind often seems to be going at its normal speed. Friedman had always said that my comprehension wouldn’t be affected, so perhaps this is what he meant. I'll get exhausted--just completely exhausted--and lie down in bed, my eyes closed, my body completely still. It looks like I'm asleep. Biffle and my mom have walked in or by and seen me and assumed I was asleep. But my mind is racing along. I'm making plans, big things and little things I'd like to do. I plan things as simple as a box of baby things for a dear friend's baby, or things like what I want to journal or blog about. I think about people I want to connect to, or gifts someone deserves. I'm reading books at a fairly good pace, and there was one I really wanted to write a mixed review about for the blog, and I knew almost exactly what I wanted to say. But actually having the energy to sit at the computer and write is something else and happens much more rarely.

Part of this is because playing with Maybelle has become my top priority. I wrote somebody recently and said, "I'm feeling as anxious about being around Maybelle as I was before the surgery. But without the anxiety." That’s about right. I was so fearful before the surgery--it was the stuff I wrote about in my blog post about keeping all my ducks in a row. Now my feelings are much more settled, since the surgery went well and I'm just healing. I'm sure Biffle would emphasize that I'm still anxious, and of course I am, because they promised that my personality wouldn't change, and I'm a person who operates at a more anxious level than lots of folks. But the point is that I find that I really just want to be with Maybelle, to watch her and play with her. There's still stuff I can't always do with her, but every day I seem to be able to do a tiny bit more and a tiny bit more.

By the end of her day, after I've been part of her bedtime routine (which is quite lovely), I am worn out. It was at one of these post-Maybelle times of the day that Biffle took the picture of me sleeping on Benya--although, to get me back to my point, I wasn't actually asleep then. I might as well have been asleep because of what my body was doing, but I was lying there completely still thinking thinking thinking. It's as if my brain is still getting ducks in a row. I'm not actually thinking about work quite as much as you might expect, so that's good news. But I am thinking about work in the larger sense: what do I have to say? Who do I have to connect to? What are the next plans for me, personally and professionally?

Maybelle's at Olive's house right now, so I have a little time after my midday nap (my little three or four hour midday nap) to write. I might post this on the blog later, because that I'm usually able to do in the evening. But even something as simple as responding to emails is pretty tough at the end of the day. I usually read emails at least once a day, but it often takes me much, much longer to reply. Sometimes I don't at all.