I have a terrible habit. I rob my tomorrow-self of precious sleep to indulge my right-now-self as I read into the small hours of the morning in the delicious quiet. Every night. Oh, I justify it remarkably well. Maybe I’m listening to be sure the older teens are really asleep, or to be certain the dryer stops running without burning the house down. Maybe I’m ready to turn off the dishwasher when the cycle is finished so the persistent, low dinging won’t irritate anyone’s sleep. Maybe I’m keeping watch over my husband, a restless sleeper. It’s really like dreaming, I reason: the e-reader screen is set to an exceptionally low level of light and the room is dark. I’m reclining in bed. My breathing is deep and regular and quiet. Surely my body is tricked into thinking I’m actually asleep. Right?
Yesterday was spent like many other regular days. We had another doctor appointment in the morning followed by lunch and school. My youngest fought me over his math assignment and then sailed through it on his own. He excitedly hung Spanish vocabulary words in the house for those words that repeatedly tripped him up. El sofá. La escuela. El baño. El ropero. El sillón. La recámara. La cocina. My daughter painstakingly braided her hair into an intricate bun as she got herself ready for dance class. One son studied at our parish church with his friends while the eldest and I fulfilled our civic duty and voted together. I was thrilled that I managed to get supper ready before six o’clock. A banner day. I curled into el sofá to take a wee peep into a beloved novel I am re-reading while my husband reclined in el sillón just before we called the kids in to supper. Just as I settled in, there was a dreaded holler from downstairs. The sewer had backed up into our basement.
After a frenetic evening of cleanup, I crawled into bed, looking forward to the luxurious quiet and my book. I jumped into the novena I am currently praying for some friends’ special intentions. I pray along with a video for Our Lady, Undoer of Knots partially because I like the passiveness of the call-and-response it offers (lazy…or brilliant?), and partially because it displays a different image for each of the prayers: for every decade, there are 10 different images for each the 10 Hail Marys, and each image relates to the specific mystery being prayed. It helps keep my mind from wandering and my eyes from closing. Yawning and limbs aching, I was following along as I tried to find a way to speed up the cadence of the narrator: I needed to stay awake long enough to read my book, after all. I thought of the ridiculousness of that--that I was looking forward to my leisure reading time rather than my equally-precious prayer time. It also occurred to me that I was in the middle of praying the Agony in the Garden. Here I was, not even willing to spend the 20 full minutes in prayer, let alone the hour Jesus asked of his disciples! My heart fully chastened, I prayed with intention and purpose. And then picked up my e-reader.
My alarm clock went off in the middle of the night at 7:30 this morning. I hit the floor running to chat with my dad, let the restoration guys in, and scramble eggs for the kids’ breakfast. I was definitely dragging by evening…but I’ll still read into the wee hours of the morning. Because my right-now-self demands it. And because my right-now-self is up late, praying the novena and chatting with God while panic-washing all the clothes and towels and linens in the house to prepare for losing access to the laundry room. No need to rush through the prayers as I work: I’ve got plenty of time. And no need to feel guilty reading in between loads. Sweet justification!
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