Every Morning when I wake up

 

Every morning when I wake up there are those moments that I think please not yet.  Because the moment that I am awake and aware the moment comes that I have to figure out what to do with the nightmares from the night before, and deal with the day ahead.  I have to remind myself that those things are over and I am safe in my own home.  There are days it takes me time to even figure out if a shower will be a good thing or a bad thing.  Will I take a shower and feel clean, will I take a shower to memories and forget to wash the shampoo out.  Will today be the day something happens to my house that I don't know how to handle.  Will today be the day that something else happens and I will be completely on my own to figure it out. I wake up some days and I just don't want to.  And I think of my children, I think of my students and I put on a face and I get out of bed.  I can promise you that most days are harder than you can even imagine.  Most days I would love to hide away under the covers wanting things to be different wanting things to feel more in my control.  Each day I wake up wondering if I am going to be enough, if I am going to make the right choices.  Each day I wake up wondering if the memories will stay away or creep in like a gust of wind knocking the breathe out of me.  I am too old for this. I am a kind of tired that most can not even begin to understand. Every morning I wake up and have to pretend my way through, pretend that I am fine that my heart isn't broken that I don't hate the situation that I am and feel powerless to change the way that it is. I wake up fighting,  I wake up just as tired as I went to bed.  I sometimes imagine what it must feel like to wake up refreshed and alive,  then I realize I have never had a clue what that is like even when I was small.  Sleep is for the weak, terrible things happen in the dark where a child is supposed to sleep safe. For me sleep is for the memories of those terrible things that were to brutally taken. Sleep for me is where I try to fight them , desperately trying to change the story. So you see sleep isn't a respite a break, I sleep when necessary when I  can no longer stay awake,  but not something I look forward to, just something that I wish I didn't have to have.  

I wake up every morning knowing there are things that have to get done, knowing that there are bills to be paid knowing that everything in this house that I live in weighs on my shoulders. Every broken piece is my responsibility alone and that is a weight I do not wish on anyone.  I wake up knowing it will be another day of alone,  to come home and be so tired to even make dinner and the gratefulness that I feel when Mariska has once again been amazing and made dinner for us.  

Every morning I wake up because that is what I do, I keep going, I wake up and pretend all is well. I ignore my need to stay in bed, I ignore my need to scream at the world. I ignore the need to shake my mother from sleep and scream until there is no voice left but instead I smile and get out of bed.  I laugh with Mariska, clean her glasses and walk down the stairs.  I listen to music in the car  that has all the words I can never find then I go into work, trying to take care of it all, trying to be wonder woman when all I ever really wanted every single morning is to stay in bed trying to find the piece of peace that my heart is so desperately trying to search for..  I want to wake up ready and renewed instead of still tired and weighed down by the things that I can't change.