Sleeping

A Story by Aelora

Late night musings pt.1

She wakes up. It’s still early. The air is cold in the room, and the grey of the morning is still coming through the edges of the blinds quietly. Her eyes land on the mass in front of her in the dark, snoring quietly. She wonders if he would wake if she spoke, or moved closer, maybe.

She almost didn’t dare to move, but in the end she did.

She reached out a fingertip, gently resting it on his bare back.

She sighed.

‘What am I supposed to do?’ she thought.

She moved her finger away and pulled her arms close to her chest.

It had been a long week.

It had been a long year.

It had been a long life.

She felt so much older than she was, felt wrong in the skin she was in. It was tight in here, stuffed underneath pale skin and an endless supply of thoughts, thoughts that woke her up all night, begging to be thought, brought to life. She dozed, mostly, in and out of vague, dream-like scenarios in which she’s still laying down next to him, but he’s not really there. He’s gone, and this is just what’s left of her memory of their time together.

In the end, wasn’t this what all relationships turned into? Staying awake at night, wondering what you’ve done, who you are, what you’re doing, why you’re doing it. Wondering how you got here. Wondering about the person in front of you. You stay awake at night, wondering what they’ve done, who they are, what they’re doing, why they’re doing it. Wondering how they got here.

You wonder to yourself, how have we both stayed here?

She turns over, shuddering at the cold air that hits her leg as it comes out from underneath the blanket.

She curls up tighter, resting her head on her hands, wondering when sleep would come.

She tried to think about drowning. She had never done it before, and she didn’t fear it. She tried to think about being under the bluest ocean, underneath the brightest moonlight, alone, with nothing but the bubbles of her failed breath and the quietness that came with dying. The slow, paced realization that it was all coming to an end. That it was all okay now; you made it.

A tear dropped down her nose.

She felt lonely, in a house that they had made together, and it was for no reason other than the existentialism that comes with examining your life closely. You think about the vastness of time, and the inevitability of human meaningless, of universal chaos and the beauty of having so little time to live and yet so much living still, to make your insignificant mark on the world in front of you, if only you’d reach out and touch it. You wonder if you’re brave enough to move.

She was scared. Scared to live, scared to die.

She was so young, still, in so many ways, no matter how much she tried to control it, or tried to make up for a sheer lack of years. She often became frustrated with herself, why she was not performing better, why she was wasting her time living her life.

She was hard on herself, and the weight she piled on grew until she was curled entirely into a ball, her breath shallow and rushed.

Suddenly, a rustle from behind her. She jolts, startled, as a warm hand reaches out, over her shoulder, and pulls her close, in a tight embrace.

Another tear falls down her face.

Even still, when she feels so alone, she reminds herself that she will never be truly alone, because even though she has someone to reach out to her, out into the void, they would have nothing to grab if she did not exist. That her consciousness meant something in the moments she would remember, and in the moments she wouldn’t. She mattered, even when she didn’t matter to anyone else. She was enough.

She reminded herself that she still has a long way to go, and a lot to learn, to do. She tries so much to do it all, and do it all at once, that sometimes she becomes overwhelmed by herself.

She reminds herself that she is her own body, and that even when she is shivering, cold in the night, exhausted, her lungs will still be working, and she will still be thinking, and she will still be changing, and everything would be fine, even if they weren’t, and for the moment, they were.