Insomniac

I roll over and check the clock. I know I shouldn’t. I don’t need to. It won’t help. It's 3am. I roll back onto my back and feel the tension in my jaw tighten. I’m frayed, worn thin, at my wits end, and absolutely, unequivocally, inexplicably, wide awake. I adjust my legs, then my arms. I roll over onto my left side, and then onto my right, and when neither is comfortable I roll onto my back once again and shake my legs. They’re restless. I’m restless. My thoughts are a loudspeaker playing in my head, no one in the audience but me. With a sigh I heave myself out of bed and fumble in the dark for my shoes. I find them in the dimly lit kitchen, surrounded by the other things that skulk around when the sane world sleeps. The skittering of mice in the walls, the sound of animals crawling under the house. At first they were nuisances, disrupting the quiet, but on nights like this they are friends, reminders that the world is less lonely than it feels. I stand back up and mutter to myself,  “at least I’m not the only one awake.” My hand touches the door before I realize I’ve forgotten something. Slinking back into the bedroom, I kiss my girlfriend on her forehead and whisper to her “I’m going on a walk, love.” She’s not awake, but I feel better telling her. She’s used to this sort of thing by now

The night air has an intangible quality the day does not. It's heavier, and its weight pushes back on me as I step into it. I hesitate for a moment, unsure if I want to follow through. Just go lay back down, try one more time, it’ll work I promise. I shake myself free of the thought and fumble with my keys to lock the door before turning away from it. A few deep breaths and I’ve steadied myself, a few more and the loudspeaker quiets down. Without further fanfare, I’m off into the night.

My feet move without direction or purpose and my mind wanders with them, as much a passenger as they are. The world seems to float past me, street corners come and go. I hardly even register that I am moving. The streets are quiet and dim. The houses look less like homes and more like set-pieces in a movie, waiting for daybreak when the crew will show up and everyone will assume their roles. As I look up at the sky and watch the twinkling stars dance between colors, I’m grateful that the sodium lights here have not yet succumbed to the march of progress, replaced by brash and boorish LEDs. We are too eager to make the night the day. In the dark, difference dissolves. Outlines become unclear, and to say where one thing ends and the other begins becomes challenging. The trees above me meld and merge until they are a single canopy. The quiet streets I float through are no different to sidewalks. Our sense of form is upended, and in its place wonderful new forms emerge and dance about. Boundaries become playful and the world loses its categories and delineations. What is and what is not, what difference does it make? I like it better this way.

I blink and I am far afield from home, but the scenery is familiar. I pass a house I’ve seen a thousand times without thought. But tonight, with the lights on and curtains open, it stands out as it never has before. Inside a bleary eyed woman sits in her pajamas at the kitchen table sipping on a cup of something. I catch myself for a moment wondering what the hell she is doing awake at this hour. The home looks expensive, the yard well kept, a luxury car sits in the driveway. Surely someone so put together should be asleep right now, resting for another day of office politics and the madness of meetings. Then, snapping out of it, I look down at my own feet and suddenly the question turns back on me. Why am I doing this? Why am I awake right now?

I've lived here so long that to say I know it like the back of my hand would be an understatement. I’ve sought out every nook and cranny I can find. Every lonely alleyway and crumbling drainage ditch is full of memories. Sometimes the saturation is numbing. Still, on rare occasions, I do manage to find something new. Insomnia helps with that. Many nights the only way to quiet my mind is to lose myself. But am I grateful for it? I’ve driven myself mad before laying in bed and watching the second hand spiral past. And I’ve risen without rest at 6am and looked defeatedly into the mirror far too many mornings to be fond of it. But standing there alone, far past the middle of the night, what good is there in fighting it? At 25 I still feel as though I’m coming to terms with myself, my capacities and my limitations, with my highs and my lows. Sometimes the frame is more important than the painting. Difference and normantivity stand at odds all day, but at night they dissolve into each other.

My feet continue moving but my mind remains transfixed. The moment doesn’t pass as the streets grow more familiar and my eyes grow more weary. My porch is in view, but I’m standing in front of a stranger's home. As I fumble for my keys, I'm staring at a coffee mug. As I crawl into bed, I’m looking at the manicured lawn. As I fall asleep, I’m leaving the curtains open.