Advanced Essay #1: Sleep tight

I woke up christmas morning of first grade and snuck down the stairs at 6AM. I carefully took each step in order to not cause a creak, which would wake up my parents. With a thump, I saw my brothers curls peak through the darkness. A light flashed as my brother turned on his little blue flashlight to reveal the outline of everything in the living room. He scanned the room with his light and stopped in the center. The line of light revealed the wooden toy market that was at the top of my wishlist. I couldn’t help but let out a screech. We scurried over to the market, pulling out the small green containers in the front where toy food would sit.

“Where’s the food?” asked my brother.

“Flash it towards the back,” I replied.

My brother flashed the light on the back of the market to reveal boxes full of toy food. We immediately unpacked the boxes and poured them into the green containers. For the next hour we played with the wooden food kits that velcro together and cut apart.

A nice toy food breakfast was prepared for our parents. Soon after, my mom walked slowly down the stairs just having woken up.

“What are you guys doing up so early? And already opening your presents?” she asked.

“Mama we made you breakfast!” I gave her a smile that filled my face.

“Oh hunny thank you.” She responded as she pretended to gobble up what we had prepared.

I was so excited that my mom had enjoyed what we made for her. The simple childhood innocence of the belief that she would always be happy with our play, when as I look back I see the how adults play along with the innocent fun. In reality, she would never act like she disliked what we had made. As more growth occurred this innocence grew up into more self consciousness and inability to enjoy as many of the smaller things.

My mom walked to the left corner of my room and switched the light off. She then walked towards my bed and pulled the sheets to my shoulders, kissed me goodnight, and said,

“Goodnight, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“But Mama what if they do bite?”

“Then you call me up and I will scare them away.”

“Okay, stay outside my room until you see that I fell asleep,” I

replied in fear that my mother would leave me alone before I fell asleep.

I felt my eyes getting heavy and my body start to relax. As soon as my eyes fully shut, my anxiety set it and I shot straight up from my bed.

“Mom!”

I heard her voice lightly assure me that she was still there. Then I could relax and rest again. As soon as my eyes fell heavy and closed again, I heard the hallway light switch off. My body jolted up once again,

“MOM.”

Her voice arose again and assured me of her presence. At this point I was so tired my body fell right back into to my bed. Once again, my eyes fell heavy and this time stayed shut through the night.

This feeling of fear in falling asleep alone lasted until 5th grade, when I finally realized my mother would never leave me alone in the house and that she couldn’t scare away the bed bugs any more than I could. My anxiety surrounded the innocence of not wanting to be left alone because I wasn’t big enough to fight whatever might come in during my sleep. This fear was influenced by more self consciousness as I had grown up from the cloud of enjoying every small event.

Childhood, comfort, innocence, growth, all often come together. New experiences for a child enable growth out of comfort. As a child grows, they often embrace it as “I’m a big kid.” This growth decimates the innocence. The innocence we as older people often long for. The innocence that enables enjoyment in all of the little things we still wish we could enjoy. The ability to be free with comfort and others are elements of childhood that we look back on and question the ability to receive again. The ability to be free and comfortable with ourselves is an ability few possess past childhood.  This is the comfort of childhood, where your ideas and actions are always sweet, and not an annoyance. This comfort doesn’t grow until our ideas could be shot down. The ability to look past self consciousness and into self comfort is an ability many of us wish we continued to possess. It’s an ability I wish to still posses.