The vice grip on my head tightens. My temples pulse; the throbbing pain trails down the side of my neck to where my shoulders connect. I am acutely aware of the ache in my jaw, and realize I have been grinding my teeth. My gums are swollen and bruised from the trauma. My eyeballs feel foreign under their lids and my sinuses feel raw. It’s been another restless night. Another night of multiple wakings, of tossing and turning. Another night of two bathroom breaks and numbing limbs causing a position shift. Another night with a child draped across me.
Then alongside me.
Then on top of my arm.
Then facing only this way.
Then with his foot in my ribs, elbow in my face, knee to my stomach.
Another night when I finally think we’ve managed to make a tiny space between us, and a random twitch to his entire body sparks a reactionary one in mine. (The Tryptophan prescription that had been making headway with his sleep fragmentation, seems to have lost its efficacy.) A night where my eye mask does nothing to keep my eyes relaxed. Another night where the tranquility essential oil mix diffusing beside me, is anything but calming. Another night where the rain app’s sound nags at my nerves, instead of soothes them. Another night that I beg for morning and yet cringe at its arrival.
I pop an Advil and glug back some water, hoping it takes effect sooner than later. My boys both lay beside me watching cartoons; each laugh track and sound effect sounding like it’s being projected into my ears with a megaphone, the reverberation in sync with my headache. I breathe in through my nose, expanding my belly as my body fills with oxygen and I slowly exhale through my mouth and repeat; willing the ache to ease before nausea sets in.
M arrives with yogurt, grain-free granola and berries, delivering it to my nightstand with a thud, a sigh and glimmer of eye-roll. He peels A from me. Under duress, he is kicking and screaming for Mummy and we both prod H to get up and go get dressed. This, our arrangement of giving me a tiny slice of the 24 hour day, to be absolutely alone, hasn’t been working. The pleas fade into muffles but continue from the floor below. Just as I lift the spoon to my mouth, C arrives and wastes no time complaining about how awful her night was and how annoying it was to be woken by her brothers’ yelling voices. I nod and smile through gritted teeth, my aching jaw reminding me why not to. She reluctantly makes her exit and I take another bite of my breakfast, hoping the protein and nutrients will assist the ibuprofen to ease my massive headache.
Fuck, this is going to be a tough morning.
From downstairs I hear siblings arguing and then toddler demands, screamed over everyone as he stomps back up the stairs and launches himself onto the bed, and me. My God, can I not have fifteen minutes alone? I can’t think! The pain begins to radiate down my arm.
Can someone bring me a coffee please? I text to C and her dad, hoping one of them will come to my mercy.
I close my eyes but A is trying to pry my eyelids open and there is no way Advil is going to do a thing for my head.
C arrives with a coffee for me. She tries to hand it to me – the mug with my caricature and name infused on the side – but of course the 3-year-old atop of me makes it impossible, and onto my nightstand it goes. I expect M to be climbing the stairs any second to retrieve him, but I wait not a minute, but fifteen. My body feels like lead and I am unable to sit up with this writhing small human stuck to me. My eyes scrunch closed, willing the throbbing to ease, only to make the pain louder. M stomps into the room and disconnects the child from me as if a giant leech that he doesn’t really want to touch but must be removed from its host. I mumble that it was a cruel joke to send up a coffee without retrieving our son, and he snatches the cold coffee from beside me too. I begin my breathing exercises again and take a Tylenol to add to my arsenal.
Ding.
Ding.
Ding.
More texts from C with complaints about how class is off to a bad start. Maybe the shower will help? Just as I’ve willed myself to stand up, M is back. He shoves a new, hot coffee at me, sneering his dare to take it; his body seething with contempt. I outstretch my hand and the second my fingers clasp the handle, and my eyes meet his stare, a shock runs through me.
I snap.
Before I can even think about the consequences, my arm rejects the offer and deflects the mug back at M, the few feet between us. His arm blocks the full impact and the mug crashes to the floor; its handle, shattering. Coffee sloshes across the side of the bed before puddling on the hardwood, splashing in every direction with its landing. His contempt is palpable with the curl of his lip and the flip of his hand. He does an about turn out of our room to continue with his set-in-stone routine. I’m left staring at the carnage at my feet. My mug lays on its side with my printed caricature intact, smiling back at me. The porcelain piece parts that once made it functional, now lay scattered and useless. What irony. I collect my own fragmented body and step over the mess into the bathroom, before I collapse into tears.
I am so very tired of being broken, yet still necessary to hold emotional space for everyone else.
This 100th day of lockdown, is proving to be a tough one to accept for all of us.