No rest for the wicked.

Sleep and I? Used to be very good friends.

These days? Not so much.

Sleep eludes me now. It teases me and taunts me and makes me believe that she and I still have a relationship when in reality, we are like that final hook-up when you know it's over and you don't really want to admit it's over.

Either way? You feel like crap in the morning.

Finding sleep is easy enough. I'm exhausted. I fear that if I blink for one second more than I should, my boss will find me, slumped over and snoring.

It doesn't last though. I crash, soundly, and two hours later I am wide-awake and blinking at the ceiling, wondering how my life got to this point. How I'm ever going to pay off my student loans. What the hell I'm doing in the job I'm at. And if I'm ever going to be able to fix myself enough to effectively deal with my family. If I'm ever going to figure out who I am and what I need to be doing with my life, my marriage, and my children.

I found myself at two o'clock in the morning, on my computer. Searching for information about what to expect about the minor surgery I'm having tomorrow. Typing random names into Google search engines, wondering what became of all the people I used to know. Scratching my faithful companion behind her ears, while she lay at my feet, snoring softly.

I forced myself back to bed at three o'clock. I looked at the ceiling for a very long time and finally, fitfully fell into a dream.

In the dream? I had a baby.

When I dream about babies, it's just as likely to be a boy as a girl. I've often imagined the little son I would have with Jason. I've seen his face many times. Mostly he is named Owen. Sometimes, it is Jacob. Once? He was Paul.

But this time the baby was a girl.

She was beautiful, this daughter of mine. Her name was Abigail. She looked like an Abigail. She had dark hair and big green eyes. Her hair was wild and thick and soft. Her skin was clear and perfect. She was normal, not premature and not sickly.

I don't remember all of the dream. I do remember that having her came quite suddenly, and I was unprepared. So unprepared was I that I added a little Post-it note to my Christmas cards that said, "And Abby too!"

Because she was ours. She was part of our family.

The alarm clock jolted me out of my fantasy.


I'm still the same.
There is no Abby.
There will never be an Abby.

And worst of all?

I can't fix any of it.

So I cried in the shower. I cried in the car. And I sit here, now, trying not to cry.

Because crying won't fix it.