The parenting journey is full of sleepless nights and exhausting days; autism parenting, much more so.

These sleepless nights, though, sometimes bring a kind of clarity that gets lost in the noise and rush of the day, when you are moving from one task to another, solving, managing, responding, without pause.

Krishna has been merrily awake through the night and then sleeping through the morning for the past ten days, his body firmly out of sync with the world, and when he doesn’t sleep, he sees no reason why anyone else should either—least of all his minions… ahem… parents.

His father and I try to take turns lying down, negotiating rest in fragments, but Krishna decides otherwise, with a well-placed smack or an insistent tug that reminds us that downtime is, apparently, optional.

It is long past midnight.

My limbs are heavy, stiff with exhaustion that has settled deep into the body, beyond the reach of a quick nap or a strong cup of coffee.

The dark is soft and mellow, the night lamp casting a quiet pool of warmth in the corner, holding back just enough of the night to make the room feel contained, almost gentle.

Krishna giggles loudly, kicking and clapping in wild, unrestrained hyperactive joy, his energy looping endlessly, as though he has tapped into something inexhaustible that the rest of us have long since lost.

The silence bends around him.

Snaps back.

Bends again.

Snaps back.

It is almost hypnotic.

I watch him, suspended somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, my body inert but my mind strangely alert, as though fatigue has stripped away the unnecessary and left behind something raw and clear.

Outside, cicadas screech into the dark, their relentless rhythm forming a backdrop to the occasional, lonely call of a night bird cutting through the stillness.

The dark is where I meet myself.

Where I say hello.

Where I cannot look away.

Memories rise.

Unbidden.

Unfiltered.

Carefree days of floating through life, untouched by the weight of responsibility.

Krishna’s chatter, his easy laughter, the effortless back-and-forth of words that once filled our days.

A trip with him, navigating buses and trains, something so ordinary then and so distant now.

Friends who hold space for me.

Friends who found me wanting, and walked away.

Half-forgotten hurts.

Fresh wounds that still sting when touched.

They swirl together, harsh and soft, held close by fatigue that loosens the mind’s usual grip on order and sequence.

The cry of the night bird cuts through again, sharp and haunting, and the memories scatter, breaking into fragments that merge with the dark.

And then, quietly, inevitably, I turn inward.

I face myself.

Those wounds and hurts—

Did you play false? Did you hurt? Did you betray?

No.

I have been true.

To myself.

To what I believed was right.

Those old memories—

Do they give you joy? Strength?

Yes.

I hold them close.

They are mine.

My today—

Are you doing all that you can, knowing what you know now, not what you wish you had known before, but what you know now?

Yes.

Every single day.

That is enough.

In the end, stripped of noise, stripped of expectation, stripped of everything that the day demands of us, what remains is this:

What you tell yourself.

When others have fallen silent.

The thoughts still.

Gradually.

A half-moon sinks into the west, fading quietly as the first gentle call of the koel rises to meet the coming dawn.

The air shifts, almost imperceptibly, carrying with it that sharp, fresh scent that belongs only to the moments before sunrise.

Krishna plays with his fingers and toes, absorbed, alert, his eyes clear, showing no sign of sleep.

The sky lightens.

The dark loosens its hold.

Expectations of sleep dissolve along with it.

The koels greet the rising sun with wild, exuberant calls, filling the air with a brightness that the night never attempts.

And then, suddenly, gently, Krishna’s eyelids flutter.

His lashes lower.

Rest against his cheeks.

His breathing deepens.

Evens out.

Sleep.

I let out a long breath I did not realise I was holding.

Perhaps an hour.

Maybe two.

The day will come, with its demands and noise and brightness that does not soothe the way the night does.

But it will also bring with it the same truth, clear and steady:

At the end of the day, or the beginning of it, what matters is what you tell yourself.

When the world grows quiet.

And you are left with only you.