Ramblings

My sleep cycle is so messed up...
Last night, I woke up three times. When I woke the last time at 3am, I stayed up until 5am and then slept 2 more hours until 7am. One of the times I woke up, I was laying there feeling my baby "kick" wildly (though it really seemed like my baby was maniacally techno dancing) when katy started sobbing in her sleep.

It was awful.
I stroked her and whispered that she was safe and she soothed and settled easily.

The night before, I had the first bad dream I've had in a while. (I just wrote out what I remember from it, but decided to erase it- too graphic and un-necessary for the context of the post...) The point is, I'm up again at hours too dark to get anything done on my to do list- lawns are hard to mow in the dark and the "little lady" in my life doesn't deserve to wake up to me vacuuming the living room or cleaning the attic at 4am.

We've been experiencing tremendous anxiety, inner turmoil, and sadness. We are truly appreciative of our life, our relationship with each other, our active and developing baby, and the people we are blessed to call family and friends. Still, it is amazing how you can't talk yourself out of the melancholy and apprehension that tragedy leaves in its wake.

I see Katy fall apart at the sight of a friend and mentor who has lost nearly everything... I ache for him, I ache for her. She weeps for the 3 women that the world has lost. She weeps because she knew them and misses them. She weeps for him because she knows there is little that can be done to help- except to bare witness. She weeps for the loneliness he will need to meander through. She weeps because he will never be the same. She weeps because though he is forever changed, he is not gone- he has been spared- and though that may be the greatest cause of his grief right now, it is one of the causes of our gratitude. She weeps... but most of the weeping is private, inside herself, without tears. I weep (sometimes with more tears than her) for all these reasons too... and for her- my beloved, to see her strength and beauty, the way she looks out for me, and the way she fully experiences this pain- it touches me in a manner that is physically exhausting.

I have seen many examples of class, strength, dignity and beauty in this life. I have been raised by and alongside people I truly love and respect. I have married into families of strength and kindness. I have friends that would tear down walls to care for me and help me stand tall. I have a wife who is 100% raw, hardened intelligence and (somehow also) 100% kind-hearted, intuitive generosity.

And this week, I have witnessed some of the best that the human spirit might offer. In the wake of terrorism, I have seen faith that is not self-righteous, preachy, or arrogant. I have spoken with broken hearts that have chosen humility as a coping mechanism, patience as a plan of action, and gratitude to anesthetize their grief and vulnerability. I am sleepless because it has left me spinning, reeling... I am in my body feeling thoughts and emotions as aches and muscular skeletal throbbing. I feel Kicking and Screaming inside of me that is not my imagination. I am growing a son that I know - even at this early stage - is OF me and us, but not mine or ours... That the promise we make to protect him is only what our best intentions can provide.

Maybe I am sleepless because the dark is little scarier right now, or because I'm afraid of wasting time in sleep. Or because I worry of all I have to do. Or because life is the opposite of intellectual and "normal" right now. Or because for most of the day and night, it feels like my son is a one-man-marching-band inside my womb.

Or maybe it's just because I don't sleep all that well.