When The Answers Don't Come

There are two problems in my life right now that I am so frustrated with I feel like I'm going insane. I've been to insane. Liked the hours, didn't care for the people. I'd rather not go back if I don't have to.

The first is that my son is having great difficulty sleeping through the night. I truly don't know what the reason is. It's probably a combination of factors as suggested by his doctor, teachers, and strangers whose childcare books sit on our bookshelves, their book jacket photos grinning at me as if the bastards actually get some sleep.

Possible reasons include: It's never been easy for him to get his bearings back after we stay overnight somewhere else; post nasal drip; nightmares (not certain of this, just a guess); very cold room; noisy heaters that attempt to heat very cold room; lack of limits-setting on our part (one more book, one more milk, one more dear friends into the breach); and who knows what else, although I'm sure I'll know very soon because everybody has an opinion, usually unwanted and often seemingly crack-addled.

The second problem is simply a difficult relationship that I would like to see improve. Enough said there.

In both cases I've been asking. And asking and asking and meditating and asking actual people and asking for guided dreams and praying and hoping and asking. And the solutions have not come. What do you do? Keep asking? Change the question? Accept defeat? Squint at the horizon so hard to try to see the tiny changes that have come that you give yourself floaters on your retenas for the rest of time?

Anyone?

Tiny little miracles

1) My computer rose from the dead this morning, bowed low at the waist and tap danced around the room. While it was making me some tea in an elaborate ceremony, the doorbell rang and the new battery for it came. The computer clicked its heels in glee. After two hours on the phone with (remarkably nice and helpful) Dell tech support people on Friday, who had me do everything short of attaching jumper cables to the laptop and starting it off the engine of my car, I'm in genuine shock that flipping the on switch this morning actually worked.

2) I may have an opportunity to periodically go to London for work, neatly and shockingly solving the problem of how I am ever going to see my best friend from childhood who lives two hours from London by train. Even the possibility of this blows my mind. Who ever actually gets what they want? Me?

3) In the debacle following the computer's three days on the slab (I guess it's Happy Easter for the computer), my fabulous Andrea offered me the use of her home office, which I am going to take her up on starting this week. This is another one of those unbelievably lucky and generous happenstances -- I really need to work somewhere other than my house with the working husband next to me at least some of the time, and I would not be able to afford an office space on my own.

4) We loaned a friend of ours a chunk of money several months ago when they couldn't make their rent. We later told the friend they didn't need to pay us back. Genuinely felt that way. Said friend has since gotten lucrative work and not only wants to pay us back but offered to help us start a college fund for our son and make sure our investments line up. Said friend is in finance industry. Said friend rocks.

5) I stopped drinking coffee this weekend after having food poisoning Friday night and figuring that it might be a good time to clean the slate of abusing my body, mainly with caffeine and sugar. The miracle part of this is by taking vitamin supplements and sleeping when I needed to, I somehow never turned into the Jabberwocky nor ate my friends and family whole in one big gulp.

Til later.

Oh, so that's how it works

Over the weekend, I saw my dear friend R, she of the divine serendipity and the hatred of John Donne. We were walking across Houston Street at a busy and bright 6:15 on Saturday to catch a cab to a restaurant and meet some friends for dinner. We'd just spent an hour and a half getting makeovers, and hadn't really spoken much beyond rhapsodies over eachother's sparkling eyelids.

She asked how I was doing, and I blurted out:

"I'm okay, I just wish all these little physical problems I'm having would clear up."

"Like what? What's wrong?"

"Oh, stupid little things. My hand was hurting for awhile but then it stopped but now the pinkie on that hand is hurting again. My knees ache. I have headaches, but just once in a great while. Doesn't seem worth going to doctor, but I do need to get all these things cleared up."

The next day I got this message on my voicemail that said I'd won a prize in a raffle that benefits children's programming at our local playground. I won a free hour of acupuncture.

At first I was disappointed, despite the faint shimmer of the thrill of winning something, anything, by chance. But acupuncture didn't seem too glamourous, not like dinner at a restaurant or a manicure at the local day spa.

But acupuncture might help fix my pinkie, my knees and my headaches. Duh.

I slapped my achey head with my gimpy little hand.