It's a new month with new hope and a new project.

Since returning from Nashville and an exhausting week of meetings and tests, I've experienced a new sleep pattern I don't like one bit.

I've been waking in the middle of the night. I lie there and think. It's the type of thinking that floats with few connecting threads. It's not that dreadful middle-of-the-night wakefulness that gnaws a hole in one's gut and psyche. The thoughts I'm having are puzzle pieces trying to find a fit.

These little anxieties knock at a door I try to keep locked - key hidden - with a big sign that says DO NOT ENTER. But anxious thoughts are sneaky. They seep under the sliver of space between door and floor.

I lie still as these tiny anxieties creep beside me, nudge me - jabbing to make space in the refuge of my downy bed.

"Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!"

I swat at them... those middle-of-the-night concerns (okay, huge hairy scary spider fears). Will Cleveland Clinic accept me? Will it be too late? What about Thanksgiving and Christmas and weddings? What about grandbabies not yet born... to be cradled in my arms? Ahhh, and reading Goodnight Moon a bazillion times and praying I'm asked to read it a bazillion more times. *sigh*

"Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!"

*****

Lately, I've been bingeing on BBC period dramas. So, when I wake in the middle of the night and my thoughts give me great discomfort, I watch BBC period dramas and watch all those women suffering and suffocating with those horrid corsets - and I feel better - and I fall asleep. Yay for BBC! Yay for corsets!




*****


I've forgotten to mention that when I saw my pulmonary specialist last week, we had tons to talk about regarding Plan B.

Cleveland Rocks!

But she paused. Put her pen down. Looked straight into my eyes. She said, "You have a gift. You say and write what people think and feel, but are too afraid to talk or write about. You have to write a book. You have to get published. You will help a lot of people... because you have a gift.


*****


That's about it for now. Thanks for listening.