Because Staying Up All Night Brings Great Gifts

• Posted on Allena Tapia
• in Uncategorized
• on July 31, 2008
• 1 Comment.

Exactly 5 years ago right now I was also up all night (as I assume I’ll be tonight). That’s because it was 5 short years ago that my son came to be, three weeks before his due date. In fact, the office that I’m sitting in now was my bedroom at the time. Hell, I’m probably near the same spot in the room.

That pregnancy had been a bear, and I had been to the hospital multiple times for multiple ailments. I’d expected tonight to be like any of the others, although I do recall having the forethought to shower before we left, back to the hospital, again. This time they kept me, induced me because of the issues. Of course, that didn’t go very well, and Benicio was eventually brought into the world via emergency c-section at ~7p.m. July 31, 2003.

I work over night a lot, now. I’ll often get out of bed and come downstairs when the muse hits. It really began when I was doing the Prep training for About.com. That paid off, too.

I sleep so well and so hard between the hours of 4a.m. and 10a.m. In the summer, that works out fine, but come September I’ll have to readjust.

Meanwhile, a poem in honor of my only son’s birthday:

Lotus Sutra for a First Son
There will be times when you want
to swallow him back into your life, but
he’ll spin like a comet into his own, faster
than your feckless hands can hold him.

When he moves on from your life
into his own, you will keep a lock of his hair
in your dresser box to remind you
of how it was when he stumbled at your feet
then grasped your legs to stand.
-Marilyn Bates, 2005