The Lonely Hours

Makenna and I have been sleeping in the living room for the past seven or eight nights.

It's not that I don't miss my sweet husband, or my bed, or my little nook of books downstairs. It's just this weird fear that keeps me on the couch and baby girl in her Moses basket.

Ever since I can remember, I've been a terrible sleeper. I walk in my sleep, hold the most random, confusing conversations in my sleep with my poor husband, I constantly wake up and look around, confused. And from this inability to stay asleep continuously, I've come to realize the fear I have of being the only person awake in a house of sleeping people.

Oh, sure, when I am writing or tinkering, I don't mind being awake by myself. But when I am tired and want nothing more than to drift back asleep, knowing I am there by myself in the dark is actually pretty frightening to me. Weird, isn't it?

So during these tough first weeks when the baby has such odd overnight hours and can't be depended on to fall right back asleep after eating, well, I find weird solace in the overnight court shows our antenna can pick up. And the 24-hour news channel from France with British telecasters. (It's fun to think of how it's really mid-afternoon where they are and there's a whole world alive and moving somewhere out there).

Every night when P goes down to bed, I tell myself that tonight is the last night I'm sleeping upstairs. And then the witching hour strikes and Makenna and I are awake and struggling to get back to sleep and I am grateful for the background noise on television...even if it is some comical televangelist praying for my soul and extolling the good they'll do around the world with my contribution.

And every night, when I think about finally heading downstairs to my bed, the memory of the lonely hour grips me and I hide under the John Deere blanket for one more night.

Just one more night...