I was trying to go to bed early last night while my husband watched an evening soccer game. I took a shot of Benadryl and my eyes started to close almost immediately. The next thing I know, I am being suffocated by a blanket, and someone or something is pressing down on my face. I can't scream. Or breathe even. I kick and struggle under the blanket.
I wake up with a start to my husband and his mom cheering downstairs. "Goal!"
I'm breathing heavy, disoriented and discombobulated. I realize I'd been having a nightmare. I am covered in sweat. Deep breaths in and out quell my panic. I cross myself and say a prayer.
The room is dark. I'm scared. Turning on a light, I lay back down.
What's brought this on? Then I realize my mortality is pressing down on me. I'm a month and a few days away from turning fifty-two. What will the next decade bring? I don't have kids. But I have my family, my husband, my mom and my sisters and nieces. And of course, Chewbacca and my close friends. And then there's my books, and my blossoming writing and performing career and the community of writers I've built as friends who continually inspire me.
Yet . . .
Look, I know I should be grateful but there's times, times like these, in a moonlit room where I lie staring at a dark ceiling wishing that I had a daughter that I could hug and talk to, mentor and love.
Tears welling up in my eyes, I shake my head and sigh aloud and silently remind myself that I must be grateful for what I have. Be grateful. Be grateful. I repeat it in my head like a mantra. Plus, I'm a pragmatist who knows there's no use in wishing for something you can't have. It's an exercise in futility. I tell myself again, be grateful.
And I go back to bed and try to dream.
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