Dark blue.

“Patrick, I’m going crazy. And I don’t know how to make it stop.”

It’s 3 AM in California as I lie awake in our “spacious” queen-sized bed. I say spacious with a smirk and raised eyebrow because two grown-ups and a 30-lb baby can hardly fit between the sheets without some spare limbs dangling lifelessly off the edges of the bed. I’ve come to accept I shall never be able to experience the absolute luxury that is sprawling freely in one’s own bed so long as I continue succumb to my son’s adamant desire to slumber between his parents’ warmth.

It’s 3 AM and I cannot make the voices inside my head stop. My thoughts vacillate through a maze of the mundane and critical: Why is it so cold in here? Are Patrick and I ever going to get married? When will I make a million dollars? Will King be embarrassed of me one day?

I turn and see King, my life-changing baby, and kiss him gently on the lips no less than ten times before I can pull away from his velvet skin. I still can’t sleep and inform Patrick I’m going crazy. But he’s down for the count and if he heard me, it was in a mess of dreams.

“Patrick, I’m going crazy,” like I told him a month ago. Late December, King had a really bad accident and it was my fault. From guilt, pain, and complete devastation I shut the whole world out and became perpetually lost in my internalized self-torment. I wanted to make everything go away, to make King better, and found every excuse in the universe why I wasn’t happy to blame them all. Because it’s never me, it’s never my problem, because “I’m perfect” as I so often tease Patrick.

I turn and see King and pray he doesn’t turn out like me one day. Just be happy and take things slowly because you will grow up faster than you’ll ever know.

The room is blanketed in dark blue and a light flickers from the nightstand. I can’t sleep I can’t sleep so I open the screen of my laptop and log into my blog. Artemis Clover: The Real L.A. Love Story. Artemis—heh—here we go again.

Keep writing the story.

King with Grandma.