I ended up on the living room floor last night because of a messed-up sleep schedule or a small patch of mania, and my experience with my dog during the process versus a similar occasion as a kid gave me a... flashback? It gave me some kind of feeling I need to get out.
I don’t believe my parents involved the courts when they divorced—or if they did, everything worked differently 20+ years ago in Nowhere, Michigan. They split things fifty-fifty, no child support, and my dad was better than he should have been about making me spend time on the other side.
My mother married a man and moved into the home where his parents had raised... six kids? No heat, no toilet, and no bed for me. My mother had two dogs; our central actress is the bullmastiff, Rosie. She weighed more than I did and hated everyone but my stepfather. I was 10-12 and the concept of CPS wasn’t prevalent, or I had too many Other Things going on to try.
Kerosene heaters and space heaters burned through the night. In particular, I remember one knee-high model that put out more orangey light than heat, and a radiator-style one they put at the front of the couch on which I always burned my ankles.
The couch was my bed; I had a blanket and a sheet. One winter night I was dying of thirst, but I was afraid to navigate the house because it was... a mess. And I didn’t want to pee. And because I knew Rosie would steal my spot and I’ve always run very, very cold.
I couldn’t help it. I had to get water. I achieve that, come back—dog in spot. Of course, I didn’t think about moving the blankets. I was trying to be fast. Try to move her; she growls. Try to move the blankets; she growls. Can’t wake up the adults.
I ended up on the gross floor curled around that orange-light space heater with the scrap of sheet I wiggled free before Rosie started complaining too loudly. I burned my face and froze everything else. Eventually, I just couldn’t deal. I had to get my stepfather. He, cursing, hauled the dog down and I huddled on the couch in tears about the entire situation. Hating it there.
So, now I am in my thirties and had trouble sleeping. I come out to the living room—Hector the corgi is on the queen-sized living room blanket that is folded in such a way that one corner escapes. I could move him, but I’m an adult and I have so many more options as I did as that scared kid: more clothes, more blankets, a clean house whose floor I trust.
I put down my throw blankets (I always have 2-3, plus a heated shawl and I wonder, now, if this scarcity background did more to me than I thought). I grab another from the linen closet and on my return, freak out when something moves on my makeshift cot: Hector got down to join the party.
So, I throw the blankets ON HIM. Set up like I was going to anyway. He navigates his way out, curls up in the alcove created by me and the footstool, and we sleep with his head on my knee and it’s so precious that I’m not too upset about the terrible stiffness in my back from staying still too long.
Sometimes I miss having different issues as a kid versus an adult in today’s world; I can't remember vast stretches of my childhood very clearly, so I get nostalgic for homework and bees in the playset instead of climate shock and health insurance.
And then I choose to curl up on the floor with my dog, and have a flashback, and play the “game” of avoiding Hector’s licks on my tearstained face. No, things are good.
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