Stories for Another Day, Part 3*: The Elephant in Our Bedroom

So, last night, neither Hal nor I slept well. We both got up around 2 am, were up for a little while, and then went back to bed. And that's when these two dreams happened. Well, actually, they happened some time later, after Hal had gotten "up" up (as in, got up to get ready to go to the office).

First: Hal and I were in our bedroom. Only it wasn't our bedroom, it was a room with twin beds, located in my Aunt Tillie & Uncle Bunnie's house, and the bedrooms were interconnected (which they were not at my aunt and uncle's, but I digress...). We had come upstairs to go to bed after finding one of our elephants had died. When we were in bed(s), our other elephant, Lucy, whose trunk was cut (like, 3/4 of the way through it about 2/3 of the way up the trunk) (but she was still swinging it), was crying. Elephant tears (as opposed to crocodile tears). Hal told her to settle down, I reached out and patted her trunk. She turned around and settled. I left the room (through a door that does not exist at either house), and walked down the hall, taking a step down, continuing down the hall, taking another step down, and going to the back door, all the while thinking this would be a great facebook post - that Lucy had turned around in our bedroom - but that no-one would believe that we had a pet elephant...

Mind you, NOT thinking that there would be no way that I would get an elephant into our house, up the stairs, and in through the bedroom door. Yeah. Just that no-one would believe we had a pet elephant. Named Lucy. That had room to turn around in our bedroom.

Back to the dream: At the back door (which was decidedly at my aunt and uncle's, including the 2nd step down in the hallway which led to the bathroom and laundry room)(and how did they raise 3 kids in a house with only one bathroom, anyway???), I looked out, and copious amounts of dirt and mud were being pushed out from under the steps through the space between the top of the porch and the drop-down board (I know there's a technical name for that but...) - so I called Hal. 'Cause he's my husband and I call him when I need something scary taken care of... And by the time he gets there, out pops this beautiful bird, mostly white, with blue on its head, tuft and down its neck. Not a bird I have ever seen. I remember thinking in the dream that it was something that belonged in a tropical setting, not in NJ or PA.

So, then, I don't know if it's part of the same dream or another, I was sitting on a couch, by a table. On the table were piled kid's plastic building blocks. Not built into anything, just piled. And they started falling onto me, the couch, and the sheet that was covering me. And Hal was there. Neither one of us knew WHY the blocks were falling on me. Until I saw IT. And could not figure out if it was a large black moth or a small...BAT...because its face looked like a bat face but the wings were rather powdery looking. I yelled for Hal to look at it, but then it went down the back of the couch UNDER THE SHEET and I tried to trap it (or at least keep it from crawling on me). I remember yelling Hal's name over and over...and over...and at some point I became aware that I was in bed, that I was not in that dream anymore, but I still could not wake up - I was yelling "Hal", "Up!", "Wake", "Help", and was hitting the blankets on top of me, trying to get his attention. I even dreamed in this part, that Hal walked into the room and ignored me because he thought I was kidding. I woke myself just as he came up the stairs to finish getting ready for work.

Now...understand that I have nightmares about every other month. And, when I try to wake myself up screaming, Hal gently reaches over, puts his arm around me, tells me it's ok, he's there, and that he loves me. So it's not like he would ignore me - I just think that in my state I must have been thinking, he'd wake me if he knew. Especially if he knew it was about a bat, because he knows how I feel about them. (FYI: They are fine if they stay outside. In my turf, they need to go.)

As for Lucy - I know that Lucy the Elephant in Margate, NJ is in my mental history. Not that I've ever been to her - I think I've been past her. But why was her trunk cut? Why was she in our bedroom (unless it's because I was gassy last night...and whenever "that" sound escapes, one or the other of us calls out "It's an elephant!")(yes, we're that old and still do fart jokes). Crying? Well, our one cat, Callie, cried for months after Wesley, the cat we adopted with her, died (poisoned Chinese cat food). I may have heard her in the middle of the night, and just made her an elephant instead of a cat. But it's the year of the dragon...

Yeah, don't try to analyze them for me...just understand, these are NORMAL dreams...and if I take a sleep aid, they are worse. So yeah, I deal with my insomnia by just not sleeping.

*Yes, I skipped parts 1 & 2; weird dreams was the 3rd mention of "Stories for Another Day"; I'll get to 1 & 2...yup, you guessed it, another day.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

"Change of Life" - more like "Total Disruption of All Things Normal". I love menopause. No, not really. But I figure if I say it, I might start to believe it. Like the Natalie Wood character of Susan in Miracle on 34th Street, when she's riding in the back of the car on the way home from the party and keeps saying, "I believe, I believe, it's silly but I believe".

My first hot flash, we were in Nebraska. It was 20 below with a windchill colder than that. We were in a rental that was not by any stretch of the imagination sealed against the weather. Now, understand - I usually have 3 blankets on my side of the bed, and Hal sleeps outside of the covers. I woke up REALLY hot. So, I rationally thought that Hal must be DYING if I was that hot. So, loving wife that I am, I threw ALL of the covers off the bed. Not off my side onto his. Off the bed. Totally. Onto my side of the floor. And my poor husband woke up wondering when we moved to the Arctic Circle. As he would continue the story, he realized that there was a burning ember in the bed, so he just curled up next to me and kept warm.

Hot flashes, lack of concentration, insomnia, irritability, erratic cycles - you name it, I've got it. The hot flashes bother me the least, I think. The irritability is Hal's biggest problem - of course because he sees it the most. The insomnia is killing me - not even "p.m. strength" acetaminophen helps. And I've tried prescription sleep aids in the past that have not helped (except to give me weird dreams, and I have enough problems with my dreams...but that's a story for another day).

But last night, yeah, last night I think was my moment. I told Hal that I was going to stay on the couch all night - I wasn't feeling well, and I didn't want to bother him with my up and down all night. So I told him that I was staying downstairs - you know, because of my amnesia. He looked at me kinda funny - and I realized what I had said. So I said - "Yeah, amnesia. Because I forgot it's insomnia that I have, ok???"

And there you have it. So if you see me somewhere, and I'm acting strange - I'm not acting. I'm just changing.