Lying Awake Feels Like This

The middle of the night feels slightly hysteric. Since late night TV and corporate lifestyles, midnight is what 8:30 p.m. probably was to the generations before. βTwilightβ has been co-opted by a low-grade teen horror tale.
Youβre lying awake at 4:12 in the morning. You dreamt of a guy you had a crush on 10 years ago. And he was offering to connect you to a great workplace. Then he looked at you longingly and reached for your cheek. You held your breath and also your reserve and told him he was married and a father. Happily married to a beautiful woman. You donβt know about the βhappyβ, you donβt really know him that well. But you assume that if a baby was made together, they must have been happy at some point. He looks back at you and says, βShe looks just like you.β And youβre at a loss for words.
But thatβs a dream. It felt so real. Youβre even scrabbling around in your memory to see if you can remember the email address he mentioned. It sounded like such a great job. βYesβ, you should have said, βIβd noticed.β
And heβd say, βI wanted to ask you out then, you know.β
Youβd reply, βI had a crush on you, then. But that was ten years ago. And youβre married and a father now. Happily married.β
Then the conversations loops back to the same place.
Thatβs what convinces you finally, that it was a dream. And the reality is that youβre lying in bed awake. Too early to get up and start the day. Late enough that if you fall asleep, youβll sleep past the alarm and ruin yet another day.
Yesterday was lost. Lost in a bloodied clot of menstrual pain, of avoidance-by-missed calls, of the low after mid-week resolutions and sleeping. Itβs gone forever, that Thursday. It was nothing remarkable but itβs gone. You console yourself saying that youβre at a place where you can afford to lose a day or two. Youβve stolen so many from your health, your peace of mind and your youth, after all. The time-keeperβs doing some book-keeping, thatβs all.
So you look to your phone instead and wonder, as you have, every lull between dream-states, what you should reply. βHe asked me outβ, you text your friend but sheβs asleep right now. You know sheβll tell you heβs bad news. You know he is. Thatβs why you asked her to remind you in such situations. But sheβs asleep. Luckily, so is he. You start to type a reply to him. Then you stop. You go back and erase the draft, in case it gets sent out by mistake.
You look at the stream of endless news, ravings, rants and opinions pouring in from around the world, into your palm. You worry, worry, worry about how to get into it. You fit in by standing out here. But youβre just drowning, getting lost in the ether. The universe has a place for you, somebody told you once. Maybe this is not the right universe. Itβs time, it is that time you decide. That moment that you will look back on, in the years to come, when you decided to turn left. It is time.
4:27, the clock says. Your eyes hurt now. So you click your phone shut and close your eyes.