another sleepless night

I’ve always had trouble sleeping.

Somehow this has managed to shape a big part of who I am and why I think the way that I do.

I still remember lying in the queen sized bed head to foot with three of my sister and my parents laying in the same room awake late night, while we all lay sleeping, whispering. Planning and worrying about where the next meal was coming from or how the bills were going to get paid. They lay there thinking of alternatives to raising all of us and how they would manage to make it. They were so young and had no idea at the time how and if they would ever make it with all of us. The sad thing was that I’de lay in my spot on the bed silently awake in the worry with them. As a child I heard the desperation and despair in their voices and I felt it with them as I lay unable to rest late in the night.

Over the course of my childhood, I’de watch them put up the front, for my sake and for my siblings sake. I watched my father work hard on multiple jobs before the sun came up until after the sun went down; while I watched my mother gather us all up and take us with her on her errands to pay the bills, plan for dinner, prepare for our school and prepare for her own education and career….