It seems appropriate that I'm waking up frightened in the dead of night, in the darkness. This is all part of it–the night terrors, the haunting dreams, the blazing awake with pounding pulse and scattered tears.
My flailing and crying out in my sleep awakens Matt. He pats me gently until I settle, until my breathing slows.
Sometimes I find myself standing in the middle of the room, battling off invisible marauders. I'm sleep-walking. Or sleep-fighting.
Come back to bed, he says. Everything is OK.
Is it?
And even now, in the silence, I feel like apologizing.
I'm sorry. God help me, I'm so sorry.
I feel like I've let him down. My near collapse has meant more work for him. He comes home from work and instead of resting he must wash dishes, fold laundry, bathe the twins.
When one spouse goes down, the other has to pick up the slack. It's not fair to him. This isn't what he signed up for. Or is it? Did he imagine that in sickness and in health might actually mean picking up the broken pieces of his wife and putting her back together again?
Maybe it's not fair. But then again, true love never is.
Love means sacrifice he says. And for all the guilt I'm feeling, there's also a deep welling of ardor, of gratitude. He shows me what love is.
I think he knows that my breakdown has been building for some time. You can only ignore the warning signs for so long. Back when I was living under the impossibly heavy yoke of an abusive church, I'd leaked pain onto him more than once. I tried to keep it buttoned up tight.
And then I'd fall into him, expecting him to catch. He couldn't. It wasn't fair to expect that of him.
I can't be God for you, he said.
He was right, of course. But the only God I knew was angry and terrifying. I didn't know where to turn. This was long before I met Mother Mary. So, I turned inward and scraped at literal flesh.
Until one day I was free.
I began to rebuild. It was painstakingly slow work, peeling away one layer only to reveal yet another.
Still, I've made progress.
But when I wake, startled, in the dead of night–I feel like I'm back to square one.
It sucks to be back here.
I grope through darkness, pull covers over my head. My knees are up to my chin.
I fumble toward her—
Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for me….
I close my eyes and the sheets are the folds of her gown. I rest my head in her lap.
I imagine her caressing my hair and slowly, I drift back to sleep. I know she's praying for me.
The next morning, for the first time in a very long time—I awake fresh. Clean. Clothed in my right mind.
