Mended Hearts, Racing Hearts

"'Each beat of your heart is a small miracle, you know, so don't get carried away. It's a fragile, makeshift repair. Things should get better as you grow up, but you'll have to be patient.'

"There's no doubt that my clock causes me a worry or two...But mostly I'm worried about being always out of kilter. By evening, the tick-tock that reverberates through my body stops my from sleeping. I might collapse with exhaustion in the middle of the afternoon, but I feel on top of the world in the dead of the night."

--from The Boy with the Cuckoo Clock Heart by Mathias Malzieu

I wonder if this explains why Himal wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes, bursting with energy, and will want to play from about midnight until 5 am with scary wide-eyed alertness...the fact that due to my heart issue, I can feel sleepy after walking up the stairs, but wake up at 1 am not tired at all, heart racing as if the whole world were about to begin anew.