To 1:00 AM

You are my favorite hour to wake up in. There is hope that I will go back to sleep, that the day I just left is gone and the day ahead will still be whole, productive. I can roll over at 1 AM and still think my way back to dreaming.

At midnight, voices and faces from the day before are outlines in the dark, impressions receding but not yet faded, faint enough to be unclear, dark enough to know they were deep. Did I hurt someone’s feelings? Did I miss an appointment? Did I walk right past her and say nothing?

But at 2 AM, the dark is not just blank, it’s empty. Everyone in the house is asleep. The dogs are snoring. I am the only consciousness. The most existentially terrifying of hours. Being and Nothingness. I cannot swim out of this hour. I cannot think through this hour. I cannot lift this hour off of me or move it away from me. It becomes me. I am lost.

3 AM is pure devastation. I will never get back to sleep. I will never write a book. I will never be a good teacher or mother. I will never travel widely. I will never run another marathon. I will never meet a president. I will never be the president. I will never run for school board. No, I will run for school board, but I will never be elected. I have 27 things to do before noon and I will get only 2 of them done. I will never retire. I will never be happy again.

At 4 AM, I just get up. I am sore from sleeping and the alarm will go off in one hour, so I might as well. I can do some research on my project, write a little. But late afternoon will hit me hard. I will have to close my door, close my eyes, and pay back this debt.

What about the nights I do not wake up? The nights I go to sleep at 10 and wake up with the alarm the next morning? The night I go through several REM cycles and solve all my problems in dreams? The nights my body heals with rest? Ah, those nights are few. They dot the surface of a year like Orion in the night sky, pointing an arrow that only the trained can see.