Ramblings from Insomnia

I have been so wiped out this week, yet I can't sleep.

Isn't that the way it always works?

So here I am at 1:30 in the morning, after a very hot day in a house without a/c, my room's just cooling down thanks to the window fan, Molly finally looking pretty content on her corner of the bed vs. the sort of uncomfortable sleeping that she's done all day, and I'm thinking very deep thoughts, as one is wont to do at 1:30 a.m.

I just finished a guily pleasure read, a Dean Koontz book. I've been a life long reader and lover of books, but have found it really hard to relax enough to read lately. This one took me a few weeks, and it was a real page turner.

I also watched the 40 year old virgin tonight, which I must admit that I really loved. Lots of laugh myself silly moments (you know why you're gay?) , but it was also rather sweet.

I let the girls out for awhile earlier in the evening, which ended up being a stress fest when Fiona went straight up a tree, and then Molly started on a fence. They weren't very happy when I dragged both of them back in. Sorry, girls.

A very low key day, not feeling so great, really wiped, did take the car out for spin on its beautious new tires. Got an ice cream maker, looking forward to experimenting with sugarless ice cream! Ate too much real sugar today, will be paying for it.

Now I'm thinking deep thoughts about where I want to go with the rest of my life. I never thought I'd be at a midpoint in life, but 43 seems pretty mid-point to me. I guess I'm officially middle aged, which I really never thought I'd be while still single and childless. I've done everything so late in life -- took a long time to grow up. Talked with my Mom earlier today (yesterday) about potentially adopting, something I really feel drawn to doing, but I really need to finish my next degree first. Single parenting isn't something to enter into lightly, especially for someone without the best of health. I've gotten comfortable and lazy with my existence, avoiding anything that seems at all scary or risky -- no longer the girl who goes to Grateful Dead shows and hangs out with complete strangers in San Francisco. That's not a bad thing, mind you, but I'm wondering where that piece of me went to?

So, here I am typing at 1:40 a.m., thinking about what I want from life, not coming up with major answers, wishing I could go to sleep, wishing it would cool down or that I had a/c, and periodically scratching Molly's head. Or my head, in perplexment.

I think the things I would end up regretting on my death bed are not writing books, not creating art, and not having a family. Family, of course, can be defined in many ways. "Station Agent" meant a lot to me when I thought of how a family was created from very disparate people who healed together. I have family, of course: my parents and my brother, who's very far away on the other side of the world (both physically and perhaps also emotionally). But I'd like to be surrounded by my own "progeny" when I approach 80, whether fuzzy ones or adopted human little ones or mutually adopted fuzzy and human family. I get a little sad when I think of how my "blood line" has ended with me, since it's not likely that I'll be able to give birth given my health and given my reality. I'd like to have children and grandchildren in whom I can see my father's brown eyes or my mother's teal/aqua eyes, my grandmother's laugh, my brother's smarts and quick wit, my little brother's (no longer with us) tender and infinite heart. I'd like to surround my parents with little ones. I want my folks to see my children while they still can. So many of my family is already gone, and what I regret is that they aren't here to share the good and the bad with me.

Anyway, this is cathartic. Good clean fun, scouring my inner recesses. A nice spring cleaning.

The better news is that I'm finally feeling really tired. yay!

I've been thinking a LOT about what to write. I've written my entire life, but kind of stopped when my youngest brother died. I did write his "eulogy," and that was probably the last meaningful thing I wrote. Sure, I've written papers, work-related things, etc. But nothing that bared a bit of my soul. And I think what I want to write are stories about damaged people who heal. There are all sorts of ways to do that -- doesn't have to a Danielle Steele novel, thank GOD (hate that kind of sappiness). I've been yearning to write about post apocolypse for years, kind of sci fi, kind of fantasy, kind of surrealism, kind of reality. I'd really like to write about my grandpa, who lived a tough while fascinating life. I'd love to write about my own childhood. I'd really love to write about my father's childhood, based on his really great stories about growing up poor in rural Montana. I'd love to write some modern/urban fantasies, similar to some of my favorite writers like Charles de Lint and Sherri Tepper and JK Rowling and Emma Bull.

But most of all, I just want to write. And that means I just have to write. Stop thinking about it and start doing it.

Note that I come up with these kinds of ideas shortly before starting a master's degree. I'll be sick of writing once I start my thesis project.

2am. I think I can drift off now. Yawning like mad. Molly's OUT. Fiona's standing guard in her favorite spot in the living room. Nice cool air blowing in through the window. I hope I don't sleep in so late that I don't get things done tomorrow. Today. One more day before I go back to work on Monday. yay.

Nighty night mr. bunny rabbit.