Homebodies - Midnight thoughts...
- Details
- Published on Sunday, February 7, 2016
By Rita Friesen
The Neepawa Banner
‘Twas around three of the AM when I awoke. Words of a hymn were running through my head, the third stanza of “Though I May Speak”, a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter describing perfect love. “Come, Spirit come, our hearts control, our spirits long to be made whole. Let inward love guide every deed, by this we worship and are freed.’
With an opening line like that to begin thinking, you would think I would have my midnight ponderings under control. Sadly, not so. By the time the dogs and I returned from their required outside time, the shine had left my thinking.
My going to sleep music is 51 minutes long and often I use it for back to sleep as much as getting to sleep. I hit the play button and crawled into bed. The day had been filled with unaccustomed sights and sounds, a tough day of class in the Clinical Pastoral Education course I am enrolled in. (Seven more Mondays, two more weekends on call and many hours of service left to go!) I re-processed the day. Then I got to thinking about my up-coming holiday to Holland in April. Not worried about the house, but concerned about, of course, my dogs! Supportive family members have promised to provide care, but is that fair to them? Should I find a kennel for two weeks, find someone to house sit them and the house? Send them out to a farm family? What is the going rate for such stuff? By now the music has completed its cycle and, after a time of extra thinking, I leave the comfort of my warm bed to hit the ‘play’ button again.
This time, I am back to re-playing the week just past. Words said and left unsaid accompany me in the soft darkness of my inner room. Okay, switch channels for goodness sake! Switch to the holiday. The mind is a tricky companion. Review instead the turmoil of obtaining my passport. I do have it safe in hand but that was no easy feat! My former passport had expired, things like death and dying had dimmed any thought of a passport renewal date. So it was a complete do over. Small detail, I had lost my birth certificate so had to apply, and wait for that. World situations have changed and so now one needs birth certificate and a detailed track of every name change. My official divorce decree did not/ does not have my maiden name on it. Calls to head office about that. First passport picture wasn’t centered, re-take! Birth certificate has my name as Reta, only paper that does, more changes in travel tickets! Get up and hit replay on the ‘go to sleep music’!
It takes little math to know that by now morning is just a breath away and I am still determined to try to sleep. Relax, breathe deep and regular. Again. Woke to a warm tongue washing my face.
