Some days are trickier than others; those days when the tasks you can do (and have done) in your sleep are just slightly…off. When your autopilot is either broken or tuned to a different frequency and flight plan altogether. Distraction doesn’t even begin to cover it. You snap at the kids to finish up eating when you haven’t yet put food on their plates. You find yourself parking the car in the garage, only to wonder why you don’t seem to have any grocery bags with you. (Oh, right! You didn’t actually GO to the store, just mentioned its name out loud.) And the dooziest of them all: having your house alarm sound mere moments after you’ve left home because the door didn’t properly latch the first go ’round. (So now I’m responsible for ensuring the doors actually close and lock, too? Where does it end?)
My current level of brain activity is akin to an infected wound (ew)- all of the blood is rushing to the forefront of my brain, leaving the grey matter in the corners of my mind and my willy-nilly physical responses sadly lacking in anything even remotely resembling oxygenated blood cells.
Or- spatially- it’s like everything in my home has shifted exactly two inches to the left. Except for me. So now I’m ping-ponging off of door frames and stovetops and clocking myself squarely in the face with the shower door.
Related: I had a crazy dream last night. It took place in a fun amalgamation of my two childhood homes with a li’l seaside manor house thrown in for scenic and architectural appeal. My Dad was there, as were my sisters and a few random neighbors from back in the day. (I know my Mom was there, but I’m pretty sure she was cooking in the other room.) My Dad had cancer in this dream (because my Dad has cancer in all of my recent dreams), and it turned out that we finally, finally figured out how he had gotten it: a really terrible person had given it to him. And, of course, this bad guy was coming over to the house again in a few moments to gloat or just be evil like the cartoon villain my eight-year old psyche had decided upon.
And then he was there. And he was big and bald and evil, like some psychotic Mr. Clean with a hint of a goatee (and nary an earring). And he said he wasn’t sorry about the cancer. HE WASN’T EVEN SORRY! I looked around for my Dad, to tell him to get out of there, but he had disappeared. So I looked at Bizarro Mr. Clean, who was sort of chuckling in a villainous way, and I just lost it. I grabbed a steak knife (which had been helpfully sheathed in a knife block on the coffee table) and stabbed the bad guy in the chest. (Three times.)
I’m not a violent person. I’m not an impulsive person. I’m not even a “knife” person. (I’m much more of a “lead pipe, in the study” person.) And to tell the truth, I don’t think I’d ever be able to really stab someone, if it came down to it. But stab I did. (And stab and stab once more for good measure.) The guy bleeding out on the floor was proof of that.
“I can’t believe you did that,” my oldest sister said to me.
“Yeah, too much,” chimed another sister. (The third sister just gave me a weird look.)
Suddenly an assortment of my sisters-in-law showed up to voice their displeasure as well.
“Do you really think that was the right thing to do? Do you even feel better now? Knives should never be your first choice.”
So I got all defensive. “Guys, this is the man WHO GAVE MY DAD CANCER.”
“What man?”
We all looked around. The guy on the ground had also disappeared and- thankfully- so had all of the knives.
“You’re not even good at stabbing a man to death.”
No one understood me. I stomped upstairs and found myself in a gorgeous, formal living room with dark wood accents and a wraparound balcony overlooking a misty harbor. (Seriously, this was the best “childhood house” I’d ever convinced my sleeping-brain actually existed.) My Dad was sitting by a window, looking out at the ocean.
“Dad, that was the guy who gave you cancer!”
He just smiled at me and gestured out the window. “Help me with something?”
We pushed up the heavy windows and peered down. Hooked right underneath each window was a giant decoration/flotation device. (Helpful, if you think about how close we were to the water’s edge.) They were Christmas decorations/flotation devices, and I propped the window while my Dad pulled a large plastic candy cane into the room. Moments later, he hooked a humongous plastic fish and seashell into place against the house.
“There. You’ve gotta remember to do this stuff.”
We leaned on the windowsills and looked out at the ocean. It was nighttime now, and people were setting off fireworks in the sand. The breeze rustled the new decorations/flotation devices and, as we sat in relative quietude, I had to admit that my Dad was right.
The plastic fish and seashell looked fantastic.
“I got your back, Dad.”
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