Cry to sleep

The night I cried myself to sleep….Like a baby who needs to learn to self sooth.

I cried watching Hotel Transylvania. After watching Frozen 2 which I also cried through. Neither have a reason to cry about. I need to sleep but feel like I am about to cry myself to sleep. I have a good reason to cry but no good reason to sleep.

I never let my babies do this. Cry it out. I didn’t want them to self sooth. I wanted to be their mother and sooth them. Rock them. Hold them. Let them know they were safe. How scary of a world is this when we think our brand new babies need to self sooth? Do they need to self sooth because the world is so scary or is the world so scary from letting them self sooth? I don’t know what self soothing even is.

I didn’t get to self sooth. I cried too long and too hard. Waiting for someone to come and let me know I was safe. My parents couldn’t tolerate letting me cry it out. They loved me a lot and I loved them a lot. I’ve heard the stories. I cried. Like a lot. I was rarely allowed to cry myself to sleep. That kind that makes you whimper and sniffle all red and wet and puffy until you surrender and realize the world is a scary place and it’s just best to sleep or is it that it’s best to sleep because the world is a scary place? The kind that makes you breath shallow and fast when you are finally just exhausted and give in to rest.

Is this the root of my anxiety? I can’t self sooth still today. I am crying through movies that don’t make people cry and still don’t feel soothed. I feel confused about vampires and magical frozen lands. If I cry myself to sleep I will no doubt have the strangest dreams.

So Hotel Transylvania is the saddest movie I have ever seen tonight. Maybe ever. Why am I not watching like City of Angels or what? A Hallmark movie? What else is sad? Everything is sad tonight. I could be watching friends and cry. All I know is I am going to cry until I sleep. I’m going to self sooth as an adult. Since I didn’t as a child. Or maybe I did?

I want to be cuddled and don’t even know what being cuddled is? I was likely picked up and held until I stopped crying. Was that soothing or would I have stopped crying in the same amount of time if I was left to cry and be afraid? Was I still afraid even though I was being held? Should I try it now? Why not right? I want to be held and allowed to cry until I sleep. Like I did when I was a baby.

I slept like a baby. Because I cried like a baby until I couldn’t anymore. There was no one there to come pick me up and make me not cry. I dreamt the weirdest dreams. I remember some of them. I was in a theater and I had no pants on. My elementary school crush was there and couldn’t get his baby to stop crying. I took her. She needed to be held and her diaper was soaked. Then I went from room to room and everything was frozen. I couldn’t open the doors they were too cold. Luckily there were no vampires in this dream. I am scared of vampires. Then I woke. I look like I cried myself to sleep.

I wish I could remember when I was a baby what I was thinking when I cried inconsolably. Did I want picked up or left alone? Not even my parents knew. Right now I want picked up and held.

My calendar is stuck on April. Not stuck. I looked up now and it is just still on April. Time stopped when my dad died. Time stopped when the world stopped. Now I just want that calendar to stay on April forever. Should I write it on April 3, dad died. Then circle it like I do birthdays? Would that be odd? What if I write everyone who dies close to me and I end up with a calendar full of people who died not people who were born? No.

I feel less like I have cracked ribs but still like they are definitely cracked ribs. One sinus pocket is a little weird this morning. Like water is stuck in it which is exactly what happened. From white water rafting water went right up my nose. Then stayed. Now it is coming out. This happens when I swim. Water gets in and stays for a day or two then just falls out one day. My sinuses have been redone from my son smashing me in the face when I tickled him to wake him up when he was 5. So I don’t have coronavirus this morning either. Just water in the sinus pocket.

I remember my cat gagging and throwing up in the middle of the night. I thought she was in my dreams. Until I woke up. Then I saw.

Why that was important I don’t know.

I cry when someone asks how I am. I cry when I think about returning to work. I cry when I think about not crying at work. I have cried on the shoulder of the road. I cry now when I am about to fall asleep now. My daughter told me all the men who like us have died. That I need to shop for men. Specifically a dad. What? Where does she get these things? She is right. I can do this all alone but I didn’t sign up to and don’t want to. I can be mom and dad. I can camp, fish, hunt, boat, tie cool knots, climb trees, I have knives, I can cuss like a sailor, actually I can’t fish but I can eat fish and like the idea of someone fishing for me, and I’m indifferent about hunting, I can if I have to but my actual vision of hunting is a little more primal cave man style than what I’ve seen. But again if I needed to hunt to survive I would and could. Anyway, I don’t need to man shop. Or dad shop. She is right. All the men important to me are gone now. I panicked tonight with my son. I didn’t have my dad to call and come get him. And my kids dad is unapproachable. We worked it out.

I signed up for a dating site then I un-signed up then did it again and undid it again. I don’t know what is wrong with me. I don’t need someone I want someone. But I want them to appear as if I wasn’t looking. Which means I have to quit looking. But it also means so does he. Right? Right. So I fear, yes fear I will go at this all alone or on my own. I just don’t want to. I can. And I will but I didn’t want it and still don’t. Not on my own.

I plan to cry until I fall asleep tonight too. I need to. It gave me something to do. I just kept ruminating all the sad and it kept making me cry. I intentionally became an over thinker and not a moderate over thinker so I could cry so much I wore myself out to sleep. Like I did as a baby.

I don’t want to return to work. I want to stay home and stay alive. Forever. I want to hide and seek from the world. Problem is I will actually be waiting for someone to come find me. That’s how I play hide and seek. I hide super well then I wait and wait and wait to be found then I get mad when I hid so well or so long that no one does. That’s a win right? I won if everyone went home and I am still hidden or if no none even looked.

Fuck coronavirus. It has touched my life. I was told once it would, that it will everyone somehowWell it did me and will forever. It isn’t likely to change my approach to life. It is changing my approach about death. It is changing me as a person and has helped me learn more about my faith. To find a spiritual connection, to be able to get me through. That’s the only way through. To get through. Cry through the night, cry through the pain. Cry through it all. Cry to sleep.