Insomnia

When I was younger - I think I was about 8 at that time - I went through a phase of insomnia. Try as I might, I just couldn't sleep unless I was in the same room as Ma. I wasn't sure why or what had triggered it but whenever I tried sleeping with my sis, I would pester her to talk to me or tell stories just so that she wouldn't fall asleep before I did.

It was as if I couldn't bear to be left alone when everyone else had gone to dreamland.

One night I dragged my pillow and just sat outside Ma's room. I remember looking at the cuckoo clock on the wall and it was half one in the morning and I just sat there. Waiting for Ma to open the door. I didn't cry, I didn't even knock on her door - I just sat there in silence. Eventually Ma came out, I think she had to go to the kitchen or something. I don't remember if she scolded me but I went into her room and laid myself on the mattress on the floor at the foot of the bed and happily went to sleep.

I remember feeling so safe and contented and I remember it was the best feeling in the world that night.

Lately I have been having that same unsettled, niggling fear. I would feel restless as I hear Abg slowly drifting off to sleep. A part of me wanted to wake him up and ridiculously wanted to make him talk to me just as I had made Yanie tell stories to me just so she wouldn't fall asleep first all those years ago.

Spending the week at home with Ma had been calming. I thought I had passed the crying-at-the-drop-of-the-hat phase. I thought I was ready to go home and resume my life. But as I sit here, I am again dreading the night. I feel like the little kid who is quaking in fear for the bogeyman in the closet.

Perhaps it is the room and the bed and the memories that comes with it. I keep flashing back to everything that has happened in the last 4 months - when I was full of hope and overjoyed with the miracle - and the last few weeks when there were uncertainty and tears.

I know I must let it go - but does it have to be so hard?