After a full day of teenage angst, sibling squabbles, and endless questions from a curious 11-year-old, peace has finally descended on my home. Tonight I’ll be staying up late.
It’s glorious.
All I can hear is the hum of the air conditioner and the occasional creaks of a house that is well used and well loved
This is the time that dreams are made of.
Or more accurately, this is the time I should actually be dreaming. Everyone else in my house is sound asleep.
But not me.
It’s not that I can’t use the sleep. I spend most of my days in an exhausted stupor. I have been known to doze off while standing with a cup of coffee in my hands.
Yesterday I spent two minutes trying to wash off what I thought was mascara under my eyes, only to discover that it’s dark circles underneath them.
No question about it, I need the sleep. But I’m staying up late, because I just can’t give up my midnight rendezvous with someone I don’t get to spend nearly enough time with: me.
There is something about staying up late that is just too seductive for me to resist.
I don’t have to worry about a call from my daughter’s special needs school telling me I need to send in yet another form, or a nurse from one of three schools informing me that one of my dears is sick. No texts from my 17-year-old telling me that he forgot his book for English or reminding me he needs to be picked up at 4:00 pm. Not even a call from my husband telling me his train is late again or asking me if we need milk.
All my chickens are present and accounted for.
I can breathe. A feeling of serenity comes upon me.
Some nights I just lay in my bed listening to music and the sounds of Joe breathing. Sometimes I catch up on a movie or TV show from the DVR.
But mostly I’m on the computer working or communing with other digital moms in blogger nirvana.
When I was growing up in the dark ages, before computers and movies on demand, my mother used the hours after midnight to indulge her passion — cleaning.
