nighttime says this ….

They’re like dominoes.

Night falls.

One comes down the steps.

Tip toe. Stomp. Creak. Tip toe. Creak. Creak. Creak.

And the bed fills up. Five times over.

By the time my bedtime arrives, I’m looking for any ounce of room.

It’s a king sized bed but its regal size isn’t large enough for all this kid royalty.

Sleeping big kids are nearly impossible to maneuver. Their limbs all gangly and long and heavy and twitchy.  Gone are the scoop and slide days.

I slip and twist and scrunch to contort my grown up self into any leftover space.

My body literally cannot fit if I lie on my back. It’s side sleeping for me tonight. Side sleeping and knees bending and is there any money to be made for being a forty-one year old sleep contortionist?

It’s funny though.

Four months ago I would have found another bed. Well. Four months ago this wasn’t an issue. But let’s say it was. I would have crawled contentedly into one of the half dozen empty beds upstairs.

But not now.

Now I grin a little sleepy grin. I gently shove and angle the smallest children into corner positions to make a little more space for myself.

I get it.

We’re a family.

And some nights we just need to be close in order to drift into sleep. We need to feel feet and stretchy arms to feel connected. We need mismatched heavy breathing and the random sleep talking to be reminded that we are not alone.

We are not alone.

Not during the harsh sunlit reality of the day.

We are not alone.

Not during the dark lonely deep of the night.

There’s this moving, shifting all together, mess of us and when we are finally still at the close of a day, we do not rest alone.

I don’t go find another more spacious bed than this one because I want to be reminded too. I need the ragged rise and fall of the breath of the humans I love most in this world to sleep sweetly, however crowded it is.

To remember.

I am not alone.