{ Storytelling (DAY 494) }

“It is not often that I pass a nuit blanche; but when I do, I settle world problems.  Isn’t it funny how much keener your mind is when you are lying awake in the dark?”  ~Jean Webster

Squinting I looked at the clock and read the red numbers that formed to tell me it was three somethingish in the morning.  I had been very much asleep and now I was very much awake.  Pain throbbed through my head like I’ve never felt before.  So is this a migraine I wondered…?  The constant pulsing didn’t let up and when I felt a touch of nausea I knew I needed help.  Because my body is weak I have to be gentle with it and Ibuprofen doesn’t count as gentle.  Yet the hammer in my head wouldn’t let up so I turned on the light and fumbled around in the cabinet looking to see how many little tablets I should take.  Trying to get a grip I went back to bed only to discover that no matter how I positioned myself it was sheer pain.  It’s moments like that when I have weird thoughts such as, “If I ever have the joy of being a mommy I may rethink the whole I-don’t-want-an-epidural thing.”  And you know what?  Even though I’m 26 all I wanted was my mum.  I wanted her to be there with me.  So when I heard footsteps in the hall I spoke.  And because my mum is amazing she came.  Touch from a loved one actually decreases pain.

There we sat/laid on the bed in a tumble of blankets, sheets, and pillows and she rubbed my back trying to soothe me.  “Honey do you want me to hold you?”  I tossed and turned and moaned again.  My cranium felt that it would split open.  I focused on taking in oxygen.  Eventually I curled up next to mum and laid my head on her chest.  I felt her deep breath in and out and mine started to catch the rhythm.  Steady. It was then that I asked her to sing for me.  (She used to sing to me before bed every night when I was a little girl.  After she placed herself in the pink chair I would crawl into her lap and she would sing.)  Somehow in the dark of last night the bitter turned sweet and she sang life over me.  There was life and truth in those words so sure and gentle yet strong.  Along with that and the blessed relief of the drugs I treasured up the moments.

This is raw.  This is real. You don’t ask for moments like this filled with intense pain but when you get them and they are filled up with the love of a mother they are worth it.  Some may think it’s strange but I know daughters without mothers who would give anything for one more moment like this.

Then somewhere in the darkness from deep down inside I started laughing.  It was that late night laughter where everything is just funny.  When I asked my mom what had us giggling like schoolgirls last night she can’t remember.  All I know is that the pain turned to laughter.  The illusive sleep finally started to come and she went back to bed.  As I lay there I had a crystal clear revelation.  It was one of those defining moments I will look back on for the rest of my life.  As I played the last hour or so of events in my head I choose words and wrote them across my brain.  Right then I realized something, I am a storyteller.

I’ve always wanted to be a writer and I feel like it eludes me but I write anyways.  Months ago I decided that I was going to stop saying I wasn’t a writer and just settle for “a writer who is lame.”  That’s almost worse though, so in the end I knew I just had to write.  While I don’t want to be labeled by things such as writer, piano teacher or things that I do I still want them to be a part of me.  What I do doesn’t define me but it can add to me as a human.  It is hard to express the happiness that came over me with the realization that I’m a storyteller.  The long sought after desire showed me it was there all along when I was least expecting it.  And then I drifted off to sleep creating stories in my head that had much less pain thanks to the Ibuprofen and mum staying with me through the worst of it.