I woke up somehow fully aware that I was upside down. It was cold and I was confused. Several minutes passed before I could find a square inch of truth I could use to figure out where I was and how to right myself.
Sounds pretty harrowing, right? I assure you it was. It is an experience I will not forget anytime soon. The funny part is it happened in my own home just last week.
After nearly two years of living the pandemic life, I acquired the virus. I set up an isolation room for myself. We have exactly one bed in the house right now, so my sick bed was a chair, once dubbed the best sleeping recliner in the house. I am a nester when I sleep. The process requires lots of pillows and several blankets. Last week, I managed to find a limitation in the physics of that particular recliner. Apparently, there exists a tipping point at which the chair will dump its inhabitant, nest and all, straight backward into a confused heap in the middle of the night.
I remember buying that piece of furniture shortly after marrying Hubby Guy. It is a fully stuffed rocker, glider, recliner that I had special ordered. It has been adored by everyone who has sat in it. Many accidental naps have happened in that chair. When I started coming to my senses and realized I had been betrayed by my beloved rocker glider, it stung. In my weakened, drug-induced sleep state it had pinned me upside down between the wall and the hardwood floor.
I am now recovered from the virus but am still feeling pretty salty from the furniture betrayal. Of the things one should be able to trust in your time of need, an expensive recliner should be a no-brainer. I was asleep, for Pete’s sake!
Life has a way of upending us when we least expect it. Some things simply cannot be predicted. My thoughts have been directed at these truths since my rude awakening last week.
When multiple family members died in a span of 6 months…. I felt pinned.
When my grandson was born broken and died at the age of 2 ½ … I felt pinned.
When a pandemic upended every shred of normalcy … I felt pinned.
At o’ dark 30 last week when I woke up disoriented and cold…. I was literally pinned, but the feeling was eerie and familiar. In some odd way, I feel I was gifted a tangible experience to match the figurative ones from the last several years of my life.
Honestly, I laugh every time I consider what a sight I must have been last week: sick, alone, and wrecked by my favorite furniture in my own home in the middle of the night. I don’t personally know anyone who has been betrayed in that manner, especially while sleeping.
I keep going back to the moments just after I woke up. I had no idea where I was and what was going on. The one thought that turned my thinking away from the terror I felt in the moment was, “What is the truth?” From my foggy, upside-down brain I started hunting for the truth. That is how I pieced together what was happening.
What is the truth? It turned out to be not just A question but THE question. I have made a personal note for the next time I find myself pinned. Perhaps you should note it too. The only thing really predictable about life is that it will be unpredictable. We will all find ourselves occasionally pinned. It serves us well to at least have a starting point for recovery.