Life Going on Without Me

I woke from a dream that my mother was in.  My mother is in most of my dreams.  She is not usually the main character, and often isn't really doing or saying much of anything.  She is just there, in my life, in my dreams.  I find this comforting.

Anyway, in this dream, I was taking instruction from someone on a project, and being judged for it, too.  I was listening to what the person was telling me about my effort, so I could get it right.

As happens so often with dreams, very little of it remained in my mind once I woke up.  The details melted away almost immediately like frost under the spell of a strong defroster.  I don't remember what the project was, nor the object(s) I had made, nor who was talking to me, nor what they said.

I remember that as I woke, it dawned on me slowly that I had had this dream during an unscheduled nap, and that it really wasn't a time that I was usually in bed.  The dim light behind my bedroom windows wasn't the hint of dawn (which would be bad, actually, since dawn comes after seven at this time of year), but the lingering rays of twilight.

And, with that thought, came an urgency, a longing deep in me, to right what seemed upside down.

I wasn't supposed to be in bed, asleep.

As I came back to life from my dream, my senses returned like thunder.  Music was playing and someone was singing along to it.  I had gone to bed with my velvet dress and some pajama bottoms and thick socks I'd put on while typing in the unheated library on.  Down in the cores of my legs, I was hot as a yule log.  My thirst was almost unbearable.

I felt frozen, removed from my life, but, as it came rushing back, I knew I had to unthaw, uncover, get up, take it on.

I knew.  While I am in here sleeping, my life is going on out there--without me.

My children and husband were busy mixing, baking, and decorating a multitude of Christmas cookies.  My baby was alone in his room, singing up a storm of all his favorite carols.  There was the short calling out of a son who I knew was creating the most intricate snowflakes I've ever seen.

I had the loneliest sense of being missing.

Yes, they could actually get along without me, while I slept through this evening.  Yes, I could "sleep" through their lives, focusing on my own projects and ideas and not be there for theirs.

But I knew that that was missing the whole point.

The stress of this Christmas has given me a few times a hope that it would all soon be over.  But that is so much the wrong way to feel.

I threw back the covers and staggered into the kitchen.  Noise, light, work, creativity, and love were bursting out all around me.  I took a glass and drank deeply, first from a glass, then from life.

Thanks, Mom, for hinting a judgment on my efforts and projects, and getting me up to make sure I don't miss the boat on the most important one.  Just being there, especially at Christmas time, for my own.