THINGS THAT KEEP ME UP AT NIGHT
1. The Light Outside My Window
The obnoxious orange light filters into the bedroom of my childhood home perfectly through the crack in the blinds. It’s a sliver of brightness in an otherwise dark room, the strip of orange somehow managing to fall right into my eyes. It is something that I do not miss while away at college. The streetlamp flickers sometimes, like an eye rapidly blinking in the night. I wonder if the moon ever feels jealousy at being outshone by a broken light. When the flickering finally stops and the light dies, I can’t help but to feel as if I’m suddenly being watched. It’s as if the eyes that lurked outside can now see in. I’m suspended in total darkness—something I longed for only a few moments ago—and an irritating thought scratches at the back of my mind. I hate myself for thinking it, but the damage is done.
2. Murderers That Got Away With It
They’re still out there. Either six feet underground or lurking in neighborhoods waiting for an orange streetlamp to flicker out. I’m sure they prefer to work in the dark. The average person walks past thirty-six murderers in their lifetime. I’ve counted three: the girl in my class, the man who lived down the street, my friend’s father—and I pray that I’m not average and the list will grow stagnant. Do murderers pretend it never happened or do they yearn to do it again? Is the only thing stopping them the fear of being caught? Or maybe it’s the broken light outside of people’s windows that keeps them awake. I curse the light for dying and tuck my head under a blanket.
3. Did I Lock The Door?
Every kid knows that you're safe under a blanket. If you can’t see the monsters, the monsters can’t see you. A flashlight might help, but the second you turn it back off, you’re done for. The blanket on my bed has kept me safe from the monkeys in my closet I feared as a kid, the creatures that watched through the windows, and the danger that wandered the streets. A blanket is impenetrable. Unlike the doors. I drag myself from the bed for the second time that night and make my rounds. All the doors are locked, but will they still be locked in an hour? Two hours? I better go check.
4. The Uncertainty of Death
My cat’s green eyes watch me as I stalk down the hall to the door. He wonders what I’m doing up so late and why I haven’t fed him between now and the last time I checked the locks. I used to carry him into dark rooms so that he’d protect me from whatever waited for me in the shadows. I take him with me back to bed now. My cat is old and his movements are limited. I don’t think he’ll be around to protect me for much longer. I listen to his ragged breathing in the dark. A harsh noise against the whirr of the air conditioning. I listen for the breathing of my parents across the hall, just in case. I lay in bed with my eyes open, listening. I wonder how long I have.
5. All My Undiagnosed Diseases
I have the blood of a stranger running through my veins. I’ll never know if that blood has a history of disease—if anyone has ever died from an illness that is hereditary—unless someone sets up a meeting with my biological mother that none of us want. I feel a twang of pain in my left leg. Is it Peripheral Artery Disease? Deep Vein Thrombosis? Spinal Stenosis? Will it have to be amputated? How long does it take to learn how to walk with a prosthetic leg? Is this even an inherited disease or a secret second option? Maybe if I ask my mother to reach out and ask for the information that keeps me up at night, all this worrying will stop. At least, specifically, the worrying about dying of disease may stop.
6. Things Out of My Control
Car accidents, house fires, lightning strikes—seemingly random accidents that we have no control over are enough to make my stomach churn. We ask ourselves what are the odds? But the odds are never zero. We hear of all the tragic accidents that happen somewhere in the world either from the news or through a friend. We’re all guilty of thinking that will never happen to me, or that will never happen to anyone I know. But then I lie awake at night, and I think of all the times it could have been me, and I’m left with this haunted feeling in my chest. When I was six, I was at the zoo when a gorilla escaped its enclosure. A couple years ago, a man broke into my neighbor’s home and attacked them. Just a few days ago, the pyromaniac ten-year old boy that lives across the street set the woods by my house on fire for the second time. I feel relieved it wasn’t me. Or maybe it’s guilt that I’m feeling. That guilt reminds me of the times it was someone I know. I’ve had two separate friends get hit by a train, one family member killed in a tractor accident, one in a tornado, another in a fire. I lie awake, worrying for the day something else happens out of my control. But what are the odds?
7. Living Things
The streetlight outside my window flickers back on. I squint my eyes against the orange light that I had nearly forgotten. Through the blinds, I can see the field of tall yellow grass and the deer that now stand frozen. Their heads lift at the sudden source of light. My dog notices them too, her barking suddenly echoing throughout the house. I find her hidden beneath the table, just in view of a window that overlooks the yard. The deer scatter when they notice my movement, and I bring my dog quietly to bed. I close my eyes and listen to her anxious breath, finding comfort in the fact that the odds are not against her yet.
8. Individuality
What a miracle it is that we are alive. It often feels as if the odds are against us, but our hearts pound steady in our chest and our breathing continues on in a constant rhythm. I think of the deer outside, my old cat that lays at my feet, my parents in the room across the hall, the girl from my class, the boy across the street, and I think of how blessed we are that our hearts are still beating behind our ribcage and our breath carries on. I think of how we all live separate lives. We live with individual thoughts and feelings; we live with separate memories and separate heartache. A baby was just born somewhere in the world, their life only just beginning. And someone else just passed away, the pounding in their chest coming to a peaceful stop. I’m reminded every night that our breathing will not continue forever, but it is a miracle within itself that tonight I am alive.