Sometimes, I am still the last one to go to sleep

With three teenage boys, it’s not often anymore that I am the last one to go to bed. As I age and they inch up the teenage ladder, I find myself falling asleep earlier and earler and my boys going to bed later and later. Granted, I get up at the crack of dawn and on weekends they can sleep well past noon. But occasionally, on a school night, I can still come across a rare evening when each of the boys goes off to his room and it’s just me and my dog in the TV room; alone with hot cup of tea and the eleven o’clock news. Most of the house lights are off and its just that dark blue hue of the television set. My faithful husky/shepherd mix–Sammy– is at my side, the steam of the tea wafts toward my face and fogs my glasses and I kick back and enjoy the quiet, secure in the knowledge that my boys are safely in their rooms (possibly even in their beds) and at that moment — despite all the world’s troubles I see on the news on the TV screen before me — all is good with the world.