Sunrise

When Conrad was only a few days old we went to visit friends of ours who had a nine month old son. I remember watching their baby as he crawled, smiled, and ate normal adult food and thinking there is no way Conrad will ever be like that. It seemed impossible that my new-born who did nothing but sleep and cry would ever get to that stage. And yet he did, just like all babies do, all I had to do was give him time. 

Fast forward to Eric as a new-born. I knew these horrendous early weeks would pass, I had witnessed it before my very eyes with Conrad, but again I couldn’t see how we would ever get there. I was so blinded by pain (c-section), stress (pyloric stenosis), and exhaustion (new-borns don’t sleep) that I didn’t see how it would ever get any easier. 

At my meeting with the community mental health crisis team after my previously discussed hot mess meltdown, they asked me if I still looked forward to things, and talked about the importance of having things, no matter how small, to look forward to and keep going for. 

For me, one of those things was finishing the novel It by Stephen King, and then going to see it at the movies when it came out. 

Two Sunday’s ago, I did just that. 

I picked up one of my best girlfriends, brought a ticket and a choc-top ice cream, and sat there grinning like an idiot as the opening credits began to roll. 

Because five months ago I sat in my room, wiping tears and baby vomit off the cover of my book, thinking I would never do it. There would never again be a time where my life was together enough and I was getting enough sleep that I would be able to finish a book or leave my children for the necessary amount of time to go and see a movie. 

But it happened. I finished the book and have read three others since then, and I was there, in the theatre, away from my children, watching the movie I had been looking forward to for so long. 

To be honest the movie was a bit disappointing. Movies are never as good as the books, especially when the book is a literary masterpiece by Stephen King. 

But I wanted to tell you about it, dear reader, because that fact that I went is evidence that I got through one of the worst periods of my life. 

And if I did, you can too. 

I’d like to finish with an abridged quote by the great Stephen King himself….

The thought that comes to him is too complicated – too fraught with a terrible mixture of anger and sorrow - to be articulated … It’s about how they’re too blind to see past the earth’s dark curve to the next sunrise. Which always comes, if one continues to draw breath.* 

Keep breathing, dear reader. 

Your sunrise is coming. 

X

*This quote is from End of Watch which is the third novel in Stephen King’s Bill Hodges Trilogy. Highly recommend, maybe make it your small thing to look forward to.