If you don’t sleep now, you won’t be well enough later on to handle your boys. You will be impatient, irritable. And you won’t be able to concentrate on your work. Don’t worry, they will be fine. They like being with Angélica, they don’t need you. This is your space and it’s a good thing you have it, too. Don’t feel so anxious, go to sleep. I can’t sleep, so I’d better get up and start doing something. But then, I won’t be able to get back to sleep and if I don’t feel well, I am going to get more and more anxious. Poor Angélica, sitting out there with the kids, having to entertain them. No, it’s not like that at all, she enjoys it. Don’t get all worked up, go to sleep. When you least expect it, you’ll be dreaming. It is so marvelous when I suddenly wake up and realize that I was out like a light, when I awaken content, centered. How I enjoy feeling that way. Why all this anxiety?
I will never be able to break free. I seek refuge from the present, from being with my sons. Better start counting until you fall asleep, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7… 89, 90, 91… how about getting up now? Surely, a long time has passed and here I am, still, not sleeping. No, keep on trying, you know that in the end you will drift off, it’s worth it…

 

Ángeles says: It is typical of children who were abandoned at an early age to create a voice in their head that tries to contain them, to provide boundaries, substituting an adult in order to set limits and give consolation, to tell them what to do, to help them find a way out of their despair. That voice is wearing me out. It exhausts me. All the time I feel as if I have to rebuild myself, remake a basic image that will anchor me in the present, provide an outline so that I can relate to my sons. It is extenuating. I feel as if I were in a play, but I don’t know what role I have been given.