Late Night Joy

Last night I got ready for bed. I was finishing up one final load of laundry - from the Mt. Everest of laundry that my children produce daily - and I was anxious to go to sleep. It's been a long month of working many hours and I could tell by the bags under my eyes, that I needed to catch up on a little sleep. It was midnight and I only had about 5 more minutes of drying and then off to bed.

At this moment, my 17 year old daughter comes down the stairs. She has been sleeping all day. It's midnight, so she's in the mood to talk.

Let me give you a glimpse into my 17 year old - she is nocturnal...always has been, always will be. When I was pregnant with her she would hardly move during the day, but the minute I laid down to sleep, suddenly she became Pele. After she was born it didn't change, sleep all day, and awake all night. It was always just she and I up through the wee hours of the night. Her laughing and cooing and me praying and asking her to please go to sleep. This past year we babysat a hedgehog, the epitome of nocturnal, for a friend. She warned me that he would be up all night running on his wheel and sleep all day. She said to bond with him you have to stay up at night, but she told me we didn't have to stay up...just let him run on his wheel. By the end of the week, he had bonded with my daughter. She loved his schedule.

Okay, back to the story...At first I tell her that I am tired and going to bed. She continues to talk. I am listening, but I'm making my way into the laundry room to fold the last of the clothes and then off to bed I go.

She then asks me this question, "Mom, do you ever feel overwhelmed with life?"

I'm not certain if she is asking me a question, or if she is processing out loud.

So I followup the question with, "What do you mean?" She says, "You know, laying awake at night worrying about your future, and all the issues of life."

"Yes," I say.

I realize that she is about to share a moment of her life with me, so I walk back into the living room and sit down next to her. I cherish these moments...the relativity of these moments is directly related to the age of the child. She's 17, these moments don't come too often now.

She proceeds to share her fears and her dreams. We have a wonderful time together, not full of laughter, but full of life. She is asking me for help in determining her future. I can not tell her what she needs to become, instead I ask her questions to lead her to speak out what brings her joy and fulfillment.

It was a beautiful time of joy! It took me back to the quietness of the wee hours of the night when she was just a baby, laying in my arms, cooing and laughing at me. Moments that she and I alone share. No one else knows of them. Moments that are fleeting....she is about to go out into life and create those moments with someone else.

What a beautiful young, nocturnal, woman she has become!