I can’t sleep

I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep, but I can cry. I can’t sleep, but I can still breathe. I can’t sleep, but I can still worry. I can’t sleep, but somehow I still have visions in my head, some lighthearted and others just plain confusing. I can’t sleep, so I roll around in my bed, I toss and turn, this way and that. I flip my pillow over and over. I look at the clock and I give up. I get up, and I go to the bathroom. An easy feat after birthing a few babies. I look at the clock, and I go back to my bed. I no longer reach out or look over because he left a long time ago. His heart left before his body but I still miss the warmth on nights like these.

Typically, I don’t have issues sleeping. I’ll throw myself on my bed, turn on my fan, and a few minutes after I close my eyes I find the perfect position. I doze off. I black out for many hours and I wake up usually just slightly sore in my lower back, the benefits of almost being 40 and knowing that your life is half over.

When I was a child, I could sleep for 10 hours straight, unbothered. As a teenager, I would stay up late, listening to the radio trying to record my favorite songs on cassette tapes. I would have hundreds of cassette tapes in shoeboxes under my bed. I became very good at anticipating when the DJ would come in, so as not to ruin my recording. I learned how to hit stop just before they announced whatever commercial or advertisement they were subject to announce.

As a young adult, I would stay out stay late. I could survive days with very minimal sleep, and it would never truly affect me. I knew that, mostly because I had no responsibilities, I had no children, once the weekend came around I could sleep in. And I loved it. There’s something about sleeping when you’re supposed to just be getting up and knowing that you don’t have to get up.

When I was younger my mother would get very upset when I would come home late and she would tell me, “I can’t sleep until I know that you’re home in your bed.” “Oh, mom, just go to bed. You don’t have to worry about me -I’m fine. I know how to take care of myself.” I would get so annoyed by her prodding.

But when you grow up in a Mexican family, even when you’re engaged, your mother expects you home by 11 o’clock at night. And guess what my ass was in the door at 11:00 PM. As I got older and had my children there were many reasons I couldn’t sleep, very valid reasons. I couldn’t sleep because I was in pain and when you’re nine months pregnant and the size of a beached whale, it’s hard to be comfortable, and it’s hard to breathe, so sleep is often found in a recliner. After my baby was born I couldn’t sleep because I was worried that she would stop breathing so I would get up and hold a small mirror against her mouth, watching her fast, small breaths fog up the glass. I couldn’t sleep more than a few hours in a row, maybe three or four at most because I was breast-feeding. I would wake up soaked in my breast milk and my breasts felt like rocks in my chest. More often than not, my baby would either wake me up, or I would wake her up to feed her. I was so tired and still half asleep, but I would look down at her lovingly, knowing that I’m able to provide everything that she needs. I looked down at her and I knew that she felt completely safe in my arms, and that she could trust me. I knew at that moment why my mother couldn’t sleep when I was out having fun. Even though I was a grown woman, my mother looked at me the way I look at my baby. And she always will.

I can’t sleep because my mother is hospitalized. She cannot remember who I am. I can’t sleep because I get phone calls in the middle of the night from the nurses telling me that she’s afraid, and she’s scared, and that she’s calling out for her mom. “ I want my mom. Please, I want my mom,” I hear her crying out in the background over the phone. The nurses asked me if it’s OK to give her a sedative and I agree. I can’t sleep because in the morning I’m having a meeting with administrators, doctors, and therapists, and case managers to decide the future and the ultimate ending of my mother’s life. How does she want to live the rest of her life if she can’t remember who she is? How am I to help her live the rest of her life if she can’t remember who I am?

I can’t sleep because my daughter is out and she hasn’t returned my text messages or my phone calls. I can’t sleep, because I’m worried that she may be hurt, or in a ditch, or that she may be around people that don’t want the best for her. I can’t sleep because on either end of my lifeline there are women, very important women, who I have to make decisions about every day, and I feel as if I don’t have any support to do it.

I can’t sleep, so I get up in the quiet hours of dawn and I look out my kitchen window hoping for a change. I’m hoping that I can find a solution for my mother and I’m hoping that my daughter is safe. I’m hoping that the world becomes nicer to each other, and I’m hoping that all the pets in the shelter find homes. I’m hoping that one day I find a partner who loves me and respects me but who also likes to pull my hair in bed. I’m old- I’m not dead. I’m hoping that I can pay my rent, my car payment, and my utility bills and that somehow I can still make it through the next few weeks. I’m hoping that on my drive to work I don’t get hit by a truck and that I still get to see my mother and my daughter one more time.

I can’t sleep, so I’m hoping.

I can’t sleep so the next best thing is to hope.

I sit down to drink my tea and debate over whether or not I should open a book or unlock my phone screen. Either way, in a few minutes I’ll start feeling sleepy and I’ll go and lay back down. I will lay back down and fall asleep and shortly after I’ll have to get right back up and go to work. I will go to work tired, with a worried mind and a heavy heart. I will have to leave work to go to the hospital and hopefully my mother recognizes me today. Maybe getting hit by a truck isn’t completely terrible. But I know my daughter still needs me and I hope that she’s safe. I go to work knowing that I make just enough money to survive. But who wants to just survive? I want to live, and I want to thrive. How do I do that?

I can’t sleep, because I finally acknowledge the fact that I am becoming invisible.