This is day four of four nights with worse than average sleep. My wife and I do not sleep together much these days because of my range of snoring and her need to sleep soundly without it. How this translates is I sleep on the downstairs living room couch or sometimes on the daybed upstairs or sometimes cramped on a loveseat in my "man cave". In all cases, this also means sleeping with either our dog or our cat or both. Neither creature sleeps throughout the night which means I do not sleep throughout the night.
But I don't exactly help myself to good sleep either. I will watch shows that Betsy doesn't want to see, peruse YouTube videos, or stream movies until I fall asleep. Suffice to say that between the animals and the movies continuing to play, deep sleep seldom happens and therefore I am a grouchy son-of-a-gun at the start of my day.
In the wee hours today, the cat was creating a ruckus in the kitchen. I awoke to find him with a mouse in his mouth and no real intention of killing it. I opened the backdoor hoping Mystique would at least take his prey outside, but it was cold enough that the cat thought better of it and stayed beneath the kitchen table. At some point, I drifted back to sleep (after feeding the dog who was now up and confused by the cat).
When Betsy arose at about 6:30 this morning, I made the mistake of mentioning the cat and the mouse. She is no fan of mice as one apparently catapulted himself from the pantry and scared the crap out of her last year or the year before. She immediately wanted me to go to our dank basement and round up all of the traps and catch every mouse we have--which if mouse poop is any indication, numbers only one at this time. So rather than follow her to the rabbit hole that she was heading for, I told her that I would deal with it tonight when I got home and that set off all sorts of recriminations about me not understanding her and her fears. I will say I think I do understand her and her fears, but when I am sleep-deprived, I probably do not articulate that very well.
Because I walk to work, I beat a hasty retreat to the bathroom to prepare for my day, got dressed, and took the dog for a very short walk around the block. Upon returning, Betsy told me that she needed to be somewhere safe and if I did not see her when I got home, well, that was what it was going to be. I said I understood, gathered up my belongings, and headed out--relieved to be anywhere that wasn't still in the conversation.
As of a few moments ago, Betsy called me to tell me that she has a whole house avoidance tact figured out and that the critter guy we've used in the past to deal with raccoons and opossums (neither of which she sees as terrifying) will send his guy over to look for external holes that the mice could conceivably be invading from. Also, she will wait until I get home to take a bath because, you know, what happens if a mouse is sighted?
But, here is the good thing. I did not make it my problem to solve--which is what Betsy sometimes wants. I think that Betsy is always a lot stronger than she thinks she is and I, to be really honest, am done with the idea that my job is to save the day and then be resented for it--who needs it after 35 years of marriage? Hear me closely, I love Betsy to the nth degree, but I also get tired--probably because I am tired--of being both the sounding board and Mr. Fix-It who is not getting a decent night's sleep.
Sometimes, I long for those halcyon days of our younger years where situations like these were a joy because nobody was angry and all of it was new. Sadly, I now know that novelty is not forever. Though just last evening, before the bad sleep and the cat's mousing, we were at a Day of the Dead celebration for the first time and we swayed side-by-side as a music duet played banjo and mandolin and sang "Waltz Across Texas" in the cold evening air. I know we will be okay, but some mornings it doesn't pay to get up.
No comments:
Post a Comment