Just Me

It’s late. I should be in bed with my eyes closed and my brain shut off, stretched out on the very edge of the edge of the bed with my sweet little girl pressed against me. But the house is quiet. There is the stillness that comes only with the night, when the steady deep breathing of my children assures me they’re asleep and the world outside my window seems quiet and untroubled, not reverberating with highway traffic and people shouting up and down the street. This stillness beckons to me- “Enjoy me, bask in silence.” So I do. I read. I hear the sound of the pages as they rub my fingers in turning. I write, and commune with the click clack of the keyboard. I plan. I create. I dream. And when I finally fall exhausted into my bed and pull the covers up to my chin it seems I have only one eye closed before the sounds of the morning trickle into my ears. Alarm clocks, a toddler in search of the toilet, the coffee pot gurgling down in the kitchen. My body aches with tiredness. I want to finish my sleep. But I am needed, so I drag myself out of bed and wonder, was it worth it, staying up so late to taste some freedom? Most days, I must say “yes.” For a few moments I was just me.