Hortus Deliciarum

Graham is away for the week, fulfilling the requirement of his green card that he not be out of the US longer than a year at one stretch (his attempt to stay IN the requirements clearly didn’t trouble the arsehole immigration officer in Minneapolis, who took his green card away.  “If you don’t surrender it to us voluntarily, we will forcibly take it from you.”  Arsehole.)

Anyway, this means that I am a single mother for the week, so to speak, especially since Graham’s parents are currently on a month-long holiday in New Zealand.  I have no support at all, in other words, which makes me feel very alone indeed!  Pragmatically, it’s a pain because everything is suddenly My Job.  Last night I didn’t get to bed until nearly 10PM, despite wanting to get to bed early after only having about 4 hours of sleep the night before, because after not getting to eat until nearly 8.30 I also had to clean up after myself and hang out all the clean laundry on the rack.  Ciaran then woke up three times between 10 and 12, when I finally forced a drink down his throat.  He must just have been thirsty, because then he slept through until 6.45.

It could be worse.  I could be a single mom ALL the time and man, does this sort of thing make me wonder how in the world they manage it without going crazy.  I honestly don’t know how I would have handled Ciaran’s lack of sleep for fourteen and a half months without a spouse or partner helping out.  I should have put away all the clean, dry laundry and tidied up the living room before going to bed too but was just too tired to care.  No doubt this place would REALLY be a pigsty if I were a single mother!

The thing that really scares me about being alone like this, though, is what would happen to Ciaran if something happened to me!  I imagine having some debilitating accident in my house, like accidentally electrocuting myself (or similar) and Ciaran being alone, possibly for days, as nobody would notice that I wasn’t out and about!  My work would probably wonder where I was but assume that I was ill and hadn’t called in (they’re flexible like that).  Other than work, though, nobody would notice that I was missing – my friends and I usually don’t get together other than Mondays as we all work and weekends tend to be family time.  Would Ciaran starve to death before help came?  Would I manage to make it to the phone before passing out/biting the dust myself?  What would become of us?

Scary.  I get paranoid when Graham’s not around.  I double-check to make sure the stove is turned off and I have a hard time sleeping with my back to the bedroom door, just in case anyone comes in!  I get panicky about fire and my old fears of people breaking in flares up…I used to be horrendously scared a lot of the time when I lived in Austin and even took to sleeping on the futon in my living room, rather than in my bedroom, because I was so scared someone would break in (and, apparently, my living room was “safer” from them than my bedroom.  Don’t ask!).  I’d even push the futon in front of the door a bit so that I’d block anybody trying to get in the door.

Typing that out makes me sound vaguely mentally ill, doesn’t it?  Don’t worry, I’m not going to set up a blockade of my front door and purchase a gun to protect myself from the weirdos lurking around every corner!   I suppose I’ve had a deep-seated fear of intruders in my home for quite a while and it was only made drastically worse by the murder of a friend of a friend’s 11-year-old daughter when I was 16.  She was staying with her uncle and both were murdered by a group of people who broke into their house who intended to kill the uncle but, police suspected, killed her too because she saw who they were.  They were never caught.

I don’t admit to many of my most real fears, although I suppose that really I don’t have very many, but someone breaking into my house is one of those fears.  A fire in my home is another.  Since I don’t entirely trust that I can take care of myself in such a situation, trusting that I can take care of myself plus my son in those situations makes me more scared.

Four hours of sleep is good for that sort of thing, though, as after Ciaran’s midnight waking I fell asleep and don’t remember waking up from then until 6.45, as I was simply too tired to be afraid!