Scientifically-proven rage

4am

The edge of Storm Diana battering the house.

The wind moaning against the windows sounding like a child keening. My ears alert to the faintest murmur from my son.

The creaking of the roof joists like a child's footsteps across the bedroom floor. My hands sweaty and my heart thudding as I wait for the door to our room to be opened by a sleepless child.

The flapping and rattling of the tarpaulins outside. Wondering if there's any point looking outside to see whether everything is safe.

The muffled tearing and snagging sound of a cat scratching a carpet. I nearly go downstairs to deal with the defecating beast, but decide it can wait.

BigBear turns to me, "sorry if I woke you."

He hadn't. Or perhaps he had. Or perhaps we'd both been woken by the same noises outside. Either way, I was awake before he went to the bathroom.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm now lying awake worrying about how much the building work is costing."

It didn't.

Earlier in the evening, when it was actually reasonable to be awake, BigBear had shown me a brief report on the effects of sleep deprivation on anger. Apparently, cutting someone's sleep from 7 hours per night down to 4.5 hours per night for only two nights increases anger. I am willing to provide corroborating evidence that this is true.

BigBear's comment filled me with rage. Disproportionate, unreasonable rage. In the cold light of day, it's hard to say quite why. Being worried about the cost of a very expensive building project is fiscally responsible. Communicating with your spouse when you're worried is a fundamental part of a good marriage. Lying awake in the night is something that should evoke empathy and sympathy, not anger. And yet there I lay, feeling unjustifiably aggrieved. Aggrieved that I am desperately short of time, and sleep, and energy, but that the one thing we are blessed with is enough money, and yet now I'm supposed to be worrying about that as well? Feeling as though BigBear's worries somehow negated mine, or perhaps were a criticism of mine. My nebulous anxiety was being diminished by his much more rational concern. Because it's all about me. Especially in the middle of the night.

And then I got over it.

But I was still awake.

And still awake after that.

And then awake some more.

I tried relaxing one muscle at a time. I tried focussing on simply counting to ten as I breathed, clearing my mind of all extraneous thoughts. I tried taking myself off to a "happy place" in my mind, but it turns out there isn't one at the moment.

If we'd had a spare room, I would have retreated to it to read a boring book and nod off. But the spare room is now the "store everything that used to be in the extension" room, and doesn't have a bed. Or even enough spare floor to curl up on. I considered trundling downstairs to the sofa, but then remembered I would be yowled at by IdiotCat, not to mention have to suffer Storm Diana whistling through the not-exactly-airtight temporary door.

By the time 7am rolled round, not only was I tired, worried, tearful and stressed, I was also very, very bored. So, naturally, the first thing I did was go downstairs and check that IdiotCat had not made any further deposits. To my surprise, he hadn't. Though evidence of the scratching, shredding noises in the night was apparent in the pile of carpet-fluff that lay heaped around the doorway. Feeling marginally improved after not cleaning up excrement, I made BigBear a cup of tea to say sorry for being cross in the night. Even though he hadn't known I was cross. Sorry BigBear.

I told you communicating with your spouse was an important part of a good marriage didn't I? Blog posts and unsolicited cups of tea count as communication. Really they do.