Our Time?

John and I have started this habit of staying up extremely late. I have friends who would consider 10 PM late. Nooooo...We aren't referring to such a normal hour here. We are talking about times when there are actually some who are waking up and starting their day....4 AM or so.

Neither one of us is sure when this started. He blames me. I am the pepetual night-shifter, even when not at work, and have the awesome power of requiring very little sleep. I'm not sure when this developed either. Perhaps it is conditioned. When I was in school, from high school on, I would do as much as was possible, trying to make every little moment in my schedule count. There was never a fluff class like home economics or sewing. If there was a space in my schedule at all, it was filled with something useful like chemistry or an advanced physics course I didn't have time for before. Then I would swim, work a damned-near full-time job, play in the band, play softball. I was always doing something. By the time I fit all of that in, there was precious little time left for sleep. I did the same thing in college. So now here I am and I actually have trouble sleeping for more thn 4-5 hours unless under the influence of some substance. But anyhow...

So we wait until our kid goes to bed, trying to hold onto sanity everynight. Until the Mommy and Daddy calls have stopped, until there ae no more " Get back in bed, Evan" comments, when we can be in peace to watch that movie we have been wanting to see or talk about something interesting we saw in the news, or play a game of cards. This is our time. We have so little of it each night that it gets very difficult for me to cut it short.

I know this is going to make my nights much more difficult for me when he is not here. The house will be quiet, there will be no distractions, I will be unable to sleep because I am still hard-wired that way, and John will not be here. I'll wonder where he is, if he is safe and warm, and wish he were home with me. And I'll cry. Because it wil be our time, and we won't be together.