This is what I’ve started calling my insomnia.
I have no idea what’s causing it. I don’t even know why I call it driving with my high beams on. It just feels like the right description for something I can’t quite explain.
I’m not anxious. I’m not particularly worried about anything. Although sometimes I feel like I should be. There are certainly plenty of things to be concerned about.
I have two preteens. Am I talking to them enough? Or am I telling them too much? Am I being real enough with them? Do they see my authenticity, or do they just hear me gripe all the time?
Am I giving them enough room to figure out who they are, or am I so busy trying to guide them that I’m forgetting to let them find their own way?
Do they know they can talk to me about the hard things? The embarrassing things? The things they might be afraid to tell me because I’m their mom and, well, sometimes moms don’t always respond as calmly as they should.
Do they see a real person when they look at me? Someone who makes mistakes, has doubts, changes her mind, and is still figuring things out? Or do they mostly see the person reminding them to pick up their stuff and finish their chores?
I wonder about these things in the middle of the night.
Not because something terrible has happened. Not because I’m lying awake replaying a specific conversation or worrying about tomorrow.
It’s more like my mind has turned on every high beam, illuminating every little detail of my life. Things I might not even notice during the day suddenly seem worth examining. Every role I play. Every responsibility I carry. Every version of myself that I wonder whether I’m getting right.
And there I am, wide awake, looking at all of it.
Maybe that’s what happens when life finally gets quiet. There is no one asking for a snack, no one calling my name from another room, no laundry demanding my attention. For a few hours, nobody needs anything from me.
And somehow, that’s when all the questions show up.
I don’t necessarily have answers. I just have questions.
Am I doing enough? Am I doing too much? Am I present enough? Am I too distracted? Am I teaching my kids to be themselves, or am I accidentally teaching them to become whoever they think they need to be?
And then, somewhere between one question and the next, I wonder when I started examining myself so closely.
Maybe it’s part of having kids who are growing up. Maybe it’s realizing that the little people who once needed help with everything are becoming people with their own thoughts, opinions, private worlds, and lives that won’t always include me in the same way.
Maybe I’m trying to make sure I’m getting it right while I’m still close enough to make adjustments.
Or maybe I’m just a person who has spent so much time being needed that I don’t quite know what to do with the quiet.
I don’t know.
That’s the strange thing about driving with my high beams on. I can see so much, but I’m not necessarily any closer to knowing where I’m going.
And maybe I don’t need to figure it all out tonight.
Maybe my kids don’t need a perfect mom who always knows what to say. Maybe they need a real one. A mom who can apologize when she’s wrong, listen when she’s tempted to lecture, and admit that she’s still learning, too.
Maybe authenticity isn’t about getting everything right. Maybe it’s about letting the people you love see you trying.
I hope they see that.
I hope they know that beneath the reminders and the occasional griping, there is a mom who thinks about them far more than they realize. A mom who wants them to feel safe enough to tell the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable. A mom who wants to guide them without making their lives her own.
And a woman who is still trying to figure herself out along the way.
For now, I suppose I’ll keep calling it driving with my high beams on.
I may not know why I’m awake. I may not know why my mind wants to examine everything when the rest of the world is sleeping.
But perhaps I can learn to stop treating every thought like a problem that needs solving.
Perhaps some questions can simply exist without demanding an answer before morning.
Tonight, I can turn down the lights, let the road unfold as it will, and remind myself that I don’t have to see every mile ahead to keep moving forward.
