Midnight Author

My mother was a closet night owl. She went to bed every night at 10 pm, but most nights she would only sleep a few hours before she got up again. In the early hours of the morning, Mom would sit at the kitchen table and write letters. After a few hours, she would head back to bed unbeknownst to anyone else that she had been awake. I found her that way a few times when I was young. After a bad dream or just fitful sleep, I would come upstairs from my room and find her deep in thought or silent communication, writing furiously to friends and family.

I imagine that Mom was rebelling against the adulthood and the responsibility that made a 10 o'clock bed time a necessity. That she would go to bed because it was expected, but she couldn't be confined to missing the hours of the night she liked best. I romanticize the reasons she penned long letters in the middle of the night, but I realize it was likely part personality and part that was the only time she ever got to be alone.

I find myself doing the same thing often. I fall into bed exhausted from the day and wake rested and alert only to find I hadn't hardly slept at all. Rather than laying and tossing for ages, I get up, wrap myself in a blanket and crouch in front of the computer. Content in the dusky light of the monitor, I write friends and family or I compose overly dramatic and melancholy posts for strangers to read. Once my creativeness has escaped me, I can finally return to my warm (although significantly cooled) bed and go back to sleep.

Tonight, I realize I am awake because my mind could not stand to be alone any longer with my thoughts and worries. It wanted me wide awake to deal with them and mull them around. Things like this are saved specifically for the conscious mind. The sub-conscious can only stand them for so long before it becomes overwhelmed.

I have been contemplating selling my house.

I don't want to, but the financial stress of it all has piled on top of me to the point where I am having problems breathing under the weight. With this final blow of the repairs that need to be done, I am clawing for a way out. I could sell. With the market the way it is, I could make my money back and start over with something I can afford. I could buy my Dad's little house when he moves to Ukraine in May and make it mine. Sometimes I think this is the greatest idea ever. And sometimes, I just want to hide in my mother's lap and be 12 years old again when the biggest problem I had was that I had a bad dream.