Author: Autumn

I write 'n stuff.
About Me

Sick Week

Autumn

The family caught a cold this week. Just a regular, common cold, and I’m still chasing the one-year-old around the living room with a tissue.

I set up an air mattress in the living room and turned it into a camp out, which the kids thought was great. We watched a lot of movies, played a lot of video games, and drank an enormous amount of juice. My husband and I switched off who was in charge, based on who needed a nap the most desperately.

I like my life.

I like throwing a sick party with my children. I like wiping up little noses. I like having a husband I can rely on.

We live in a world where very few people can understand that. There’s a constant push for more more more. I’ve gotten so much criticism for not joining in the rat race, to the point where I don’t bother trying to talk to most others. What I have right now, is good enough to live for no matter what else the world throws at me.

And I don’t want to live in the sort of world where one-year-olds have no one to look after them when they’re sick.

About Me

Omens

Autumn

I marked today on my calendar for personal reasons, knowing full well that nothing memorable was going to happen. Still, it had to be done.

Yesterday, another appliance died.

I’m in territory where I can’t just do a google search and find the answers. One of my biggest gripes about modern paganism is that all the sharp edges have been taken off — there’s no such thing as a bad omen anymore.

But in the real world, buildings burn, people die, fortunes are lost, love is broken, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

We’ve had four appliances die this year. Numerous signs revolving around blood. Both of my horse shoes fell from their door frames (where they had sat for a few years). All of my bundles of sage somehow ended up disintegrating where they were hung to dry. If you ask me, it all adds up to a boatload of shit speeding towards us from the horizon.

Last night I dreamed about a raven, but I highly doubt that it symbolizes getting a job interview.

For now, I make it through today, and the reason why I marked it as special.

About Me

Update

Autumn

I’ve decided that I need to stop keeping an eye on trends, considering the increasing number of things that are physically painful to know about. Honestly, the sort of terminology that is popular on the internet makes me want to say, “Uh huh. And did you come up with that before or after you ate Tide pods?”

No one with any intelligence or dignity would apply those sorts of words to themselves as a label. Ever.

Then again, I think that quite frequently when I go to the grocery store and see what people are wearing these days. A main characteristic of modern life is how far are you willing to degrade yourself to fit in. I’ve come to the conclusion that the majority of people don’t have any limits.

And I don’t want to know about it.

I’ve also decided that there are some IRL people that I need to cut out of my life entirely. The situation is getting too fucked up and exploitative, so it needs to end. Not to mention, after a year and a half of no contact, I found myself simultaneously thinking, “Were they always this bad?” and, “I did not miss this!” So I have to work my way through the guilt of being a cold-hearted bitch, simply because I don’t want to be treated unfairly anymore.

In other recent events, there’s nothing quite like watching a building burn down to remember how meaningless and insubstantial materialism is. Everything can be lost in under an hour. Everything. So instead of wasting my time on empty pursuits, I’ve been playing Jingle Bells on the piano while the children dance and sing.

Memories last longer.

Stories, The Scion Suit

TSS – Nightmares

Autumn

Is there anything more exciting than a story passage presented completely out of context?

Hee hee, enjoy.

Carol began to gasp and moan in her sleep, whimpering the words, “Don’t … take me …” before Lambert managed to shake her awake. She was thoroughly drenched in a cold sweat, and still confused as she frantically asked, “Where’s Henry? I can’t find him!”

“He’s there, right next to you in his crib,” Lambert answered soothingly, and waited for her to pick up their four-month-old son before pulling her into an embrace. “Everything’s fine. You had another nightmare.”

She was quiet, and he suspected that she had dozed off again. He kept her pressed against his chest, however, feeling her clammy skin underneath his hands as his mouth formed a straight line. He had hoped that with time and emotional support, Carol’s struggle with postpartum anxiety would resolve on its own, but instead it was growing worse.

The baby woke and began to root, so Carol shifted to breastfeed. “Sorry about this,” she murmured, completely awake. “Could you get out another pajama shirt for me?”

He nodded, but remained still. “Carol …” he began, and she stiffened from his tone. “It might be time for you to go see a professional.”

“I don’t want to,” she answered slowly.

“You’ve been having nightmares every night for awhile now. It might be best to get you on medication to help you through this.”

“I have you.”

Lambert felt Carol move to curl up around their baby, and for a moment he debated whether or not he should drop the subject all together. He got up to rummage through the dresser in the darkness, found one of the over-sized shirts that she liked to sleep in, and handed it to her.

“Cognitive therapy isn’t making any difference,” he said quietly. She remained silent, so, he pressed on, “You’re a good mother, and it’s natural to have some feelings of anxiety with a new baby …” he began, and the therapist’s intonation that he had slipped into grated against his own ears.

“Would you mind holding Henry while I change?” Carol interrupted, her voice slightly higher pitched than usual. She had recently discovered that he couldn’t argue with her when she spoke that way, and utilized it whenever she wanted him to back down. It was enough to make him cave and give up on his line of reasoning.

Lambert didn’t know what to do. For the most part, Carol was still Carol. They went fishing together on the weekends, and he came home every evening to dinner and a clean house. As long as she had their baby pressed against her in the carrier or in her arms, it was as if nothing had changed. The car trips were almost endearing, with the way she frequently checked the mirrors to ensure that Henry was still breathing, and needed the occasional reassurance that he wasn’t going to be stung by a bee or bitten by a spider while he was in his car seat.

But the nights were different.

Lambert had purchased a special crib with one side that clamped onto their mattress to help her feel closer to Henry, but it couldn’t overcome the mental separation of sleep. There were times when she had startled awake with the baby in her arms, crying about how she couldn’t find him. Recently, she had begun to fight against the fear of being taken away herself, but once awake she always claimed that she could not remember what she had been dreaming.

They had talked. And talked. And talked. Lambert had accepted the military relegating him into a paper-pusher role after the war had ended, because it enabled him to be home every night, and he didn’t dare leave Carol to sleep alone. He had even quit drinking for the most part, so he could maintain his vigilance and be there for her the moment the nightmares began.

After four months, he had reached the end of what he could handle on his own. Carol needed something more than talk to help her, and as a defunct psychiatrist, he was no longer qualified to provide it.