Thursday, May 21, 2009

Sunny Days and Sleepless Nights

I'm supposed to be at work right now. I was scheduled until 3 am, however I got to go home at 7 - the perks of people not being sick! I thought, wonderful, now I can go home, get to bed early, and get a good night's sleep. HA, or not. Here I sit, almost 2 am, not having slept a wink.

I used to have no troubles getting to sleep - I LOVE sleep! My mom would say I sleep too much, I say I'm resting up for when I have kids and can't get any. Well I don't have those kids yet, but lately I still can't get any sleep. Or at least not at the right times. Nights are the hardest around here, that's when Dad should be walking through that door with his dogs. Or when he'd be firing up the grill, making supper for the family and whoever else wants to stop by. Instead, our nights are filled with silence, unanswered questions, and mom and I asking each other what we're going to eat for supper - usually deciding on ordering out. And, sleepless nights.

The weather here has been amazing the past couple of days. Sunny, 80's-90's, simply beautiful. Something that 99% of people around here are happy about - when the dirty melting snow finally gives way to green grass and flower blossoms. For me, it's hard to be happy right now. Each sunny day brings startling new reminders of not having Dad here anymore.

Our lawn looks awful - something Dad took great pride in, fertilizing and mowing until dark many nights. We have yet to plant any flowers, Dad would already have cased out all the greenhouses in a 60 mile radius to find the best, most colorful flowers to plant in his 10 flower beds around the house. We are going camping this weekend, something I would've looked so forward to - and this year I'm having a hard time even getting the camper picked up and ready to go.

And even the simple things ... like turning on our air conditioner. Who knew that Mom and I wouldn't even know how to get the air working in the house?!?! It was literally over 80 degrees in the house today, until Mom called an air conditioning company to come turn it on for us.

Each new realized missing piece in our lives brings about sleepless nights. So here I sit, once again, questions running through my head, looking for answers that I'll never get. Trying to be thankful for the sunny days ahead.

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