One More Step

Sleep was fitful last night.

Husband is gone. Sleep is always fitful when he is away. I turned on my heating pad in the middle of the night, trying to fool my unknowing body into believing it was human heat. It worked for a while until the safety switch turned it off and I awoke and remembered once more that I was alone. Stupid safety. And I heard about how zoos will give orphaned baby animals stuffed animals as mother figures. Sometimes we just need something.

I read, once, somewhere, a line in bold print: PEOPLE ARE NOT MEDICINE. And I thought that it was actually backwards: MEDICINE IS NOT PEOPLE, it should have read. People are better than medicine. Husband is my Prozac, my Xanax, my Ambien. I live in fear of something happening to him. I'll be on a whole host of anti-psychotic drugs that I have spent years preaching against. What's wrong with using people you love to calm your crazy fears. Isn't that what people are for?

Wear your seat belt and drive safe, I want to tell Husband before he leaves the house in the morning. Don't leave me on this planet, alone with all my anxieties.

I fed children and got them to school with my brain still foggy from lack of sleep and even though I wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed, I ran the crater. I have had to narrow my focus down to one singular goal so that I don't try to live in too many directions at once. Get up the Hill. That is my goal. Or, more accurately, run up the Hill.

I made it a little further today than I did yesterday, just a step. I'm satisfied with that, because I have to be. That's all it takes though, just one more step.