I don't really sleep any more

I've set something off in my lower back today, going over a pothole on the bike or bending over too many small girls as I slicked back their hair into ballet buns before Lydia's dance school show.

The spasming takes me back into early labour with the girls, listening to Tom breathing as he sleeps beside me sometimes stirring and making little soft humph noises. Those soft kind noises the warm pleasant sound he'd make when comforting me in years gone by.

I don't really sleep any more. If I go to bed after Tom I lie awake with this ache in my chest, mentally pressing on a bruise and letting myself fall into unwanted pictures that arrive of the girls in mortal peril. Or feeling overwhelmed by how much I was, am, was? loved by my family, again bringing a tightness to my chest. It's this bittersweet sensation that one day all that will be gone, or will end somehow.

I'm scared to go to sleep and of what dreams my brain will bring me today, and of waking up stiff and sore, unable to get out of bed easily, an unwelcome reminder of my aging.