Morning sickness. It’s a really horrible thing. I’ve never been pregnant, so I have no idea if what I’ve experienced regularly since I was a child is anything like that which afflicts women (no, I’m not going to say ‘pregnant people’ as I’ve noticed certain health sites have started calling them), but it’s very real.
When I was in infants’ school, at around the age of seven I started fainting during morning assembly. There was no medical explanation for it, but it became enough of a worry for me to be placed on a chair at the end of a row every day. I don’t recall whether this made me feel special or isolated; I just remember the dread of mornings and feeling sick.
Mum was keen for my brother and me to eat breakfast, but I could barely push it down. I enjoyed the cup of tea Dad delivered to Mum, Nigel and me in bed every day (something he did our entire lives), but I dreaded the cereal or porridge that I knew would shortly follow. Even worse, the bitter Vitamin C tablet Mum insisted would keep us healthy during the cold weather.
My morning sickness has been intermittent in adulthood, although it has been particularly bad the past couple of very stressful years. Ongoing insomnia (worrying about money), waking from barely any sleep (worrying about money), and finally getting up to face the day with renewed anxiety (worrying about money) – I’ve felt like throwing up almost every day, my stomach a labyrinth of fear about what fresh hell the forthcoming hours might bring.
It’s very different from hangover sickness, which I’ve (thankfully) rarely experienced in later years. When I was younger, yes (well, somebody had to help them get rid of all that wine at TV programme launches), and I remember the throbbing head and crawling to the bathroom in the hope of dispelling the devil still lurking in my bloodstream.
Today’s trepidation sickness is a different beast altogether. Take today. Last night, I was very tired at 11.15pm. Instead of falling asleep on the sofa in front of the TV (my usual trick), I forced myself to go to bed. I confess to hating sleep. Even as a baby, my parents could never get me to settle; I swear I emerged from the womb with FOMO.
I never need much more than five hours, but as I’ve been getting up at 6am every day, I’m flagging a bit earlier. I dropped off almost instantly but was wide awake at exactly 3.38am. If I go to bed before midnight, I never make it to five hours and spend the next hour trying to force myself to grab even just four winks (40 is always pushing it).
Nada. I started to stress about the pigeons who inhabit the terrace where I’m staying; then I mentally started hanging things that might deter them. Next, fear of my falling over the balcony tending to said pigeons took over. I also started to worry about falling in general – like, out of the sky in a plane crash. Then I started to cry about my mother and wishing I’d stayed at the hospital and not left her alone when she took her last breath. Was she in pain? The last expression I saw on her face was a frown, her forehead twitching in who knows what dream infusing her morphine-soaked mind. I cried some more when I remembered the purple butterfly chart above her hospital bed, the kaleidoscope of wings being moved one square along at a time, mirroring her slow race to the final box that was, ironically, the first one.
I gave up trying to sleep at 4.38am, knowing that If I hadn’t rescued Hypnos from his elusive hiding place, I might as well get up.
It was all I could do to stop myself from heading for the toilet bowl. I really don’t like the sensation of being sick, so resisted the night’s thoughts begging me for release. I had two cups of tea and read – something I’ve only recently been able to do again, concentration having taken second place to worry for so long.
I’m reading a book called Time Shelter by Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov http://georgigospodinov.com. I came across a recent piece about him in the New Yorker http://newyorker.com during my exploration into all things Bulgarian since travelling to the country last year. He won the International Booker Prize in 2023 and the novel is extraordinary. Having mastered only 20 of the 30 letters in the Bulgarian alphabet so far, I’m not reading it in the original, but its exploration of the past and how we create – and lose – our histories is overwhelmingly poignant. It’s easily one of the greatest novels I’ve ever read. There are some things that really are worth getting up for before the dawn.
Christmas isn’t helping; it never does since losing Mum, with whom I shared almost every Christmas my entire life. I love that people are able to enjoy it, especially in world that increasingly seems devoid of any long-lasting joy whatsoever. Stuff your face, get hammered, slob out in front of the telly – ah, we must take the simple pleasures where we can.
Yesterday, the whiff of Christmas came to me via some workmen erecting huts in preparation for a Christmas market. I love these stalls of festive promise, even though I have no one to buy for and no one buys for me. That’s not a huge deal; I have everything I need and, like a child, would enjoy simply playing with the wrapping paper – although I confess to missing Mum’s carefully chosen gifts.
Back to my nausea. It’s passed now. It’s not even 9.00am where I am, and I’ve already read 20 pages and written this piece. The sun is shining, I’ve shooed the pigeons away and not fallen over the balcony, I’m not flying anywhere today, I’m smiling about memories of Mum, and I’ve ordered two more books by Георги Господинов. See? I’ve even made headway with the Bulgarian alphabet.
And unlike women’s hormonally induced morning sickness, I won’t have to pop a melon out of my foo-foo in a few months’ time.
To every cloud and all that.
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