Goodnight, Sleep Study

Wired for the night.

In keeping with 2025's assault on comfort and wellbeing, my son had a scheduled-six-months-ago sleep study last week.

These are medically not such a big deal and done widely. I do know this. But when your child’s medical history is a Big & Fat Deal, you lose your ability to assess the size of any deal at all. Your eyes get trauma-dilated. Shapes and reason blur.

On the night in question, my son and I drove into the city as it was getting dark. The hour, my companion, my night blindness — all of it made me uneasy, as if we’d been launched into space on a sudden shuttle mission. We were alone, suspended, untethered. It felt more vulnerable than it should have. I’d make a terrible astronaut.

We parked in a deserted garage a block from the hospital. Because it was just a quick overnight, I had packed in little bags, but an absurd number of them. They were hard to keep shouldered all at once.

Waiting at a crosswalk, my son looked up at the moon and told it good night, informed it that he was sleeping in the city tonight! With his Mommy! And to not worry — that the night might feel long, but the sun would be ready to take over in the morning.

“Say goodnight to the moon, Mommy,” as if he was worried the moon might find out I’m rude. I thought of the light and the red balloon and the bears and the chairs, but…