Asleep


Life in our house is ruled by children. We try, as do all parents, in controlling, shaping, guiding the way in which we live and how we live. Our lives are often held hostage to the wills of others. Little people, often unable to fend for themselves, are in our care. We must bring them up and raise them to be people. But now, it's so hard.

Luke won't fall asleep in his own bed. He will wake up every couple of hours, and will not rest, until he has someone he can cuddle in bed with him. I know he feels safe, and he needs us, and looks to us, but he will not settle for me. He will not sleep in my arms. I've tried to hold him in the night so my partner can sleep in her own bed, but it's well on a year now that we haven't woken up together. Sometime around March he wouldn't settle for me in bed, and it's now eight months that every night he's woken up only Tina will do.

He falls asleep in the living room, and so, to keep him asleep, we sit in our living rooms in near perpetual darkness every night, careful not to make noise and not to make too much light. We have learnt the hard way that should we take him upstairs, it is often seconds before he wakes up. I have not sat in my living room with the lights on for near two years. We have not woken up in the same bed for near two years. It's the hardest thing. But we are making it through this.

But goddamit. We really want to switch the lights on at night and kick back from time to time. We will get our life back. But it may take a long time.
- posted by Mark @ 10:16 pm