Pitching In

Okay, here’s how strange things are getting.

Dawn’s second due date was today – they calculated December 5 at some point, and December 11 at another point – and she could not be more sick of hauling a whole lot of baby boy (close to 10 lbs) around as some form of personal bumper. She is exhausted, can’t get comfortable, bumps into things, veers between manic and depressive with an emphasis on depressive, and JUST WANTS IT TO BE OVER, and to hold her sweet little baby boy. Me too.

Though I have none of the physical burden and am not trying to make a comparison between our relative states, I am getting very itchy myself, finding it hard to concentrate, can’t get anything finished (I have three articles due by Monday), have a nervous stomach and a LOT of gas (good for you we can “talk” at an electronic distance), and find myself staring into space and/or overreacting to any/all stimuli.

But that’s not the really weird part: last night I drifted off pretty early and easily (much to my surprise and relief) and fell into a deep sleep only to have it interrupted by a series of Dickensian freaky dreams, that I was still wandering around in even when I got up to pee or change out of my sweat-soaked PJs.

In the main, really oppressive dream, Dawn and I were wandering around in a huge, hazy onion field when she started killing off farm workers – BAD farm workers (I’m not sure how I knew that or why exactly they were bad) – with little or no effort. She would sort of point at them funny and they would keel over.

What the hell was she doing? I didn’t know because I couldn’t talk to her, I couldn’t communicate with her even though I was right next to her – maybe I was a ghost – but I knew I had to protect her. I had to bury the bodies that were accumulating around the field before the authorities found out and hauled her away, or someone noticed and sought revenge.

So I started burying the bodies. Digging huge-ass holes big enough to dump bodies into is hard, dirty, sweaty work, and I felt like I was doing it literally. I woke up drenched, aching from the effort, panicked about the moral implications, certain we would be caught, wobbly with every manner of strain.

And that’s why I’m so tired today. I don’t know what it means – I’m sure it doesn’t “mean” anything, just an expression of anxiety and an internal acknowledgment that it’s my job to look after and love this woman for the rest of my life.

Bring on the baby, please.