What They Don’t Tell You

I haven’t slept for 15 years. Not in the heavy, restorative, luxuriously drawn-out way of my early twenties — the kind that makes staying up all night an inexpensive investment.

Throughout the night I wake to the strange manifestations of deep anxiety, to the jabs of a small foot, to the slumberous giggles of children sedated by a good dream, to the thuds and clicks of animals in search of misplaced food, to the discomfort of an overworked, aging body.

Nightly sleep has morphed into a long, fractured nap, where I try to hang on in the darkness as I count the hours until a reasonable waking time has been reached, and the loudness of myself is muted by the humming of a new day.

If anything, it’s a routine I can rely on. It’s predictable and certain, a performance so rehearsed that I find even small deviations a welcome stunt. Although the surprise of dog poop on the living-room floor is rarely a fun variation to my process.

The passage of time is usually punctuated by the hours of anticipated paralysis and directionless thought. But my days blend together. Dreams become grotesque memories that sometimes gain more poignancy than the experience of day following them. They seem to be adding up, and I’m beginning to wonder if I’m really awake at all anymore.

Which seems funny because that’s my problem: I don’t sleep. It’s my son’s fault, of course. Becoming a mother introduces disturbances they tell you will only last during the postpartum period, with a small percentage facing a suspension of normal for up to a year. They forget that a woman’s body is more than a shape.

I don’t sleep because I’m needed. My brain has been reorganized to accommodate the people I’ve made. I am not an individual but a chimera. When my children left the womb, they left behind a mess, with pieces of themselves clinging to their first home.

Blaming it on motherhood might be more of a preference than it is reality. It’s a cohesive story that fills in the gaps with the warmth of maternal duty, inflating my sense of purpose and staving off the sterility of a possible clinical affliction, or worse, something that would require me to abandon the only thing I’m allowed to complain about without judgment.

When my kids are gone from my reach, I may sleep again. But I’m not sure whether I’ll celebrate its return or miss the days when hearing a mid-night sigh meant someone was sleeping soundly because they felt safe, protected by a mother who could be roused by just their breath.