Sleeping Beauty

My father is in Atlanta for a wedding this weekend. This means my mother is giving me my medications. Mom tickles me in that she wants to get it over with. I am supposed to take my medications before bed, but my mother will give them to me early in the morning so she can get it over with and go back to bed. That way she will not have to obsess over it and worry about it all day.

Ring. Ring.

"Hello?"

"Come over and take your medications," my mother said on the other end.

I walked over and my mother was standing on the back deck in her house robe and bedroom slippers with my medications in one hand and a glass of water in the other. He hair was all amiss and lopsided.

"What are you going to do today, mom?" I asked as I took those many pills.

"I am going back to bed and sleep for the rest of the day."

"Did you sleep during the night?"

"Yes."

I don't see how my mother can sleep all night and then sleep all day. I have a hard time getting more than five hours of sleep. It must be a terribly loathsome way of living – sleeping your life away.

I have been brainstorming lately about starting a support group for mentally ill people here in the Valley. I already have a venue where we can meet as in the A.A. meeting hall. I am unsure how to attract people to come, though. I am aware that larger cities have such support groups, but in a small town such as this we do not. The nearest support group is a forty-five minute drive away (NAMI) and I cannot afford to drive down there more than once a month. I am going to contact the local mental health clinic come Monday and see if they will refer people. That seems to be my only recourse.

I then called Rosa around 8am.

"Did you sleep well?" I asked as she answered the phone.

"I slept like a log," she said as she yawned.

"Come over at twelve and help me eat the rest of this chicken spaghetti," I said. "I am going to fix some biscuits and make a green salad. Dad gave me some fresh garden tomatoes the other day."

"Sounds great," Rosa said sleepily.

"Oh," Rosa then said abruptly. "You didn't take those pills, did you?"

"I've decided I am not going to take them," I replied. "I would rather be an insomniac than sleep all the time. At least, I will be living life."

"I am proud of you," she replied.

Rosa told me she would see me at twelve and we said our goodbyes and hung up the phone.

I am now going to go make my biscuit dough and put it in a wooden bowl in the fridge and cut up my salad. I don't know if I can wait till twelve to eat. I am already hungry and that casserole is calling my name. Good day.