You probably won’t believe me when I say I still sleep with my mom, but it’s true. Not in the same bed, of course, but in the same room. Until I was about ten, my mom demarcated what she referred to as her side of the plush, queen-sized bed—that had proven comfortable for us both—from mine. In an act of ultimate motherly devotion, she afforded me an equal share of the bed, in spite of the fact that I was only three-quarters her size. But by the time puberty kicked in and my feet sprouted from under the covers at the foot of the bed, we both knew it was time to say our merry good-byes. And so, a sofa bed mattress was brought in and stationed beside her royal palanquin. I became her right-hand man, a newly knighted sentinel.
But a poor sentinel I was.
It was only a matter of time before I discovered secret privileges that sleeping in a separate bed granted me, like sneaking out of the room late at night. My mother, in her lofty fortress suspended three feet above me by four wooden pegs, couldn’t see past the glare of her iPad, on which she would watch movies till the crack of dawn. I couldn’t sleep with the light flitting off the walls, so instead, I flitted downstairs.
During those hot summer nights of my rebellious ecstasy, I would will away the time, reading books, playing games, watching movies, exercising, and anything else I could think of to keep my mind off the temptation of sleep. My bed became a prison I actively avoided; every minute, every second spent awake was a second I felt in control, autonomous, and free from the constraints of parental pressure.
Soon, I stopped caring.
I took fewer precautions when making my midnight escapades, not bothering to close the door behind me with the same care that I used to take. I thought my mom couldn’t possibly see or hear me leave, but perhaps I was missing the larger point. As my guard lowered, so too did my opinion of my mother. She became someone I took pleasure in fooling again and again, night after night, to make up for all the ways she tied and bound me during the day. The fact of the matter was, I had lost all respect for her.
On occasion, at one o’clock in the morning when I strode back into my room to capitulate to my bed’s warm embrace, I would regret my reckless behavior, but this feeling would just as easily sink away into the abyss of sleep.
One evening before bed, I propped myself up on one elbow and reached to turn off my light, offering a cordial “goodnight” to my mom, which by this point had become a deeply ingrained lie. But just before I heard the auspicious click of my bedside lamp, my mom cleared her throat.
“I hope you pray to God tonight, because you need all the help you can get.”
Cold water shot through my veins. Could she know I’ve been sneaking out?I thought. Is she going to punish me?
“What?” I asked, willing away the tense ambiance with nervous laughter.
Without a word, she turned to her iPad to resume her nightly routine.
I flipped the switch and so succumbed to the burden of sleep.
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