I’m sitting on the sofa, in the dark, just minutes prior to five A.M. I’ve been awake since four. Today is my birthday but that is not why I am awake. It was incessant coughing; my own, that awoke me. My body is fighting off a cold which has laid siege upon my lungs.
After lying on the couch for 45 minutes, bundled up in my robe, enjoying the refreshing coolness of leather against my cheek, I finally mustered up energy to get up and take both a cough expectorant and an herbal sleep formula. It’s all well and good to lounge on the sofa, but I know I need more sleep.
In waiting for the sleep formula to kick in and do its magic; making my brain relax and slip back into sleep mode; I slipped into my bedroom to pluck up my laptop. My thoughts had led me back to a photo I’d posted on Facebook the night before. It was a shot of me.
Yesterday, despite this cold, I showered, dressed to go out, actually styled my hair, and applied make-up. To know my lifestyle of the past few years is to know this is an impressive feat. Typically I manage the shower and dressed part, but even that can prove to be a challenge to get there. Long gone are the days where I met most of them dressed, make-up applied, ready to meet the professional world. At best this happens on a Sunday, and even then my hairs usually a wash-n-go.
When my husband and I married, twelve years ago, I told him if the time came when I stopped applying make-up, he was to notice because it meant I was depressed. I guess both he and I forgot to take note of the meaning of this when, a little over 9 ½ years ago I stopped meeting each day showered, dressed, with style to my hair and make-up. I suppose we were both too overwhelmed with our shock and grief to bother taking note of the meaning of those details.
My husband still started each day with a shower, shave, gel styled hair and professional dress as he met his career filled day. I, on the other hand, stayed home to care for and raise our special needs child. And this I did with minimal to negligible emotional support from the outside world—that is unless you count the internet.
Thinking upon it now, I wonder if, without the internet, I might have curled up and died on the inside. Reflecting back, I remember many were the times, while baby slept, still in pajamas I sat at the computer reading stories about others who were ahead of me on this path. I read of their pain, but more importantly I read of the journey that led them beyond the pain to a place where they could find joy again.
Thankfully I too found my way out of that abyss of pain and back into the light of the living. Both my husband and I have long since grown to love and cherish our special needs child, and we find joy in ways previously not imagined with this special child.
Now that it’s been going on ten years, I’m not sure what accounts for the absence of hair styling and make-up application on the part of my daily routine. I don’t believe it’s depression; I’m inclined to think it just habit. I’ve long since told myself I’m just too busy. But now I find I’m questioning if this sense of being perpetually swamped is in reality a mask for something deeper I’m not dealing with. I am beginning to suspect it is. Hmm…
In the meantime, I went to Facebook to take another look at that picture. I’m thinking it’s okay—at least I hope so as I’m not, at present, inclined to remove it.
And now I am beginning to feel the effects of that herbal formula. Thus it is, I think I’ll see about a few more hours of sleep.
On that note, the following is something I recently heard Pat Robertson say on the 700 Club. While it’s not quoted exactly, it’s pretty close. I thought it was most thought provoking:
“Yes there is pleasure in Sin, but ONLY for a season. Sin is exciting, that is until it chews you up and spits you out, and Satan laughs all the way as he drags you down to Hell.”