Inside Out

"But she sat down to rest. She spread her skirts over the bank around her and folded her hands over her knees. Up above her was a tree in a pearly mist of mistletoe. She did not dare close her eyes, and when a little boy brought her a plate with slice of marble cake on it she spoke to him. "That would be acceptable, " she said. But when she went to take it there was just her own hand in the air." ~Eudora Welty, A Worn Path~

I thought this was such a very apt description of the way our waking minds dream, when we are so very tired. We are awake, or think we are, but all alertness has faded away.

It happens to me. During those times in my life when no matter how I try I just cannot sleep, when I fight for sleep and it won't come. When or if it finally does, it has not been enough. As the day wears on, tiredness overwhelms, there doesn't seem to be enough coffee in the world to awaken my brain. I fight sleepiness. So many times in my previous position sitting at my desk, no phones ringing, concentrating on writing in a client contact log...I would find myself drifting into thoughts faraway. I would come to my senses, only to find I had written nonsense in the log. Sometimes it would be an entire sentence containing the thoughts that drifted through my sleep deprived dreaming brain.

I have never done it while speaking to someone though, until today. A woman on the phone at half-past four. Asking questions, not really sure what she wanted to know, and my fuzzy brain unable to intuit it for her. I found myself saying some very strange thing about train schedules when I came to my senses. (she wanted to know nothing about trains and their schedules, why would she call me for that?) I apologized, she had to wonder though, who the crazy woman was on the other end of the line.

These floating awake/half awake dreams feel so real. They fade too though just like sleeping dreams do, but I have to wonder....what the message is that is trying to get out. Trains and schedules?

Too bad these folks that call don't want information at midnight, I am very alert then!

********

My psychoanalyst friend called me today. There are times when he turns on his soothing shrink voice, and tries to dig in deep with me. I sighed, and told him I was just not able to "go there" this day. Didn't want to play his "What is reality game."

He was like a dog with a bone though, wouldn't let it go.....he did dig deep, brought fears I wasn't dealing with to light, and then helped me face them, helped me to realize how unrealistic many of them were....... although I think he truly just loves practicing his craft on me on occasion, and my brain is such a crazy/fertile one to dig around in. But I did thank him in the end. His final words to me.
"It's OK to cry."