On Sleeping With You
You’ve been here before. You got this. This is what makes life beautiful. Everything is literally fine. It’s fine. You said what you had to say. This is okay. You know this feeling. You can keep going. It’s okay to be sad. Everything will be fine. Everything will be okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re good.
You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re good.
You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re good.
I don’t know why, but for some reason, I have become painstakingly focused, out of all of the little details I could try to pull together to paint a coherent picture of you, on the fact that your family drives Mazdas. I have become painstakingly focused on this fact to the point where I’m no longer sure if it’s true. Nevertheless, it has remained, in these disparate months, my tether to you.
Things have been better on my front since we last called. The last time we called, I had freshly emerged from a deep period of paralysis — day long wakes where I feel suspended between the emotions of grief and anxiety. In my peril, I often turn to food, or drink. I turn to baggy clothes, shitty TV; I swaddle myself in my sheets. Something about mourning makes me crave comfort — I don’t think this is a curious thing — but lately I have been painfully aware of how contrived any semblance of comfort I concoct might be.
I have become something of an insomniac, you see. I wish I could be like those teens who regularly stay up until 4 AM and sleep until 2 PM and spend their days watching Netflix and eating good food and snapping about it and making the rest of us neurotic ones envious of their ability to do nothing. Instead, I stay up late in attempt after attempt to tire myself out. The scariest moment for me each day is around 10 PM. I realize I have no time left to waste — A Little Life is too scary for night, I can’t write productively at night, I’ve exhausted my twiddling social media thumbs by night — and the only reasonable thing left to do is get ready for bed. The second scariest moment is when I finally turn out the lights. I’m not scared of the dark, but lights out precedes The Sleep Trials™, the guessing game of whether or not my body will let my tired mind sleep tonight. At night, I’ve taken to imagining you sleeping next to me. In the daytime, I manifest you through Mazdas.
I think the Mazdas fascination is more unhealthy than the sleeping one, to be honest. In my daydreams, I am out for my evening walk, and a car comes uncertainly yet determinedly tunneling into the apartment complex. I notice the car because its gait is weird (for example, you can always tell when a driver is a delivery guy because the car moves with the slow uncertain pace of someone trying to find their correct classrooms on the first day of school). Then, I notice it’s a Mazda. My eyes slowly raise from the front plate to the driver, and I see it’s you! Or your brother! Or a friend you’ve brought along on your adventure! We lock eyes, the car screeches to a halt and —
In my daydreams, I am out for my evening walk, and though I am lowkey scanning each and every car — Brand? State of plate? (sigh) — I return home both empty-handed and empty-hearted. In my gloom, I take note of a car I’ve never seen before parked near my entryway, but I’m too mentally spent to think much of it. However, riding shotgun, your brother — at this point, you’re extremely anxious and mentally spent too, having spent the same hour I was walking trying to build up the courage to go knock on my door — notices me — Is that her? — and shakes your shoulder. Before you can control yourself, you’re unbolting the door to your Mazda. My eyes dart to the sound of the car door, we immediately lock eyes and —
In my daydreams, though I walked past the entrance to the complex thrice on my evening walk, somehow I missed your Mazda’s arrival. In the hour I am gone, you have built up the courage to knock on the door. You are greeted by my mom who is half-asleep and furthermore doesn’t know what you, or your brother — Are you sure this is the place?, he asks. Yes, you tersely reply. — who is sheepishly standing in your shadow, look like. Upon mutual recognition and understanding, the two of you — you and your brother, sometimes you and your friend — are shuffled into the apartment, where my mom directs you either to my room, or to the living room, or to the porch( — the porch, so that when I arrive your presence is ~truly~ a surprise). I return home slightly moody, as is my custom, and head straight to the fridge for some water, not noticing you, either in my room, or in the living room, or on the porch. When I pivot my body to take in the entirety of the apartment, I jump at the presence of an unannounced body. Once I realize it’s you, my jaw drops, we lock eyes and —
In my daydreams, I have skipped my evening walk, and as I did yesterday, I am swaddled in my sheets, half-naked, napping. I am hours away from turning to food, or drink, and shitty TV. Because of the mental reprieve granted by the lustrous mid-afternoon slumber, you are not even on my mind — (there is something massively ironic about daydreaming about not thinking about the person you are daydreaming about) — as you exit your Mazda, timidly knock on my door, and receive my mother’s defensive welcome. Upon mutual recognition and understanding, you are shuffled into the apartment and told to wait — She’s napping, my mom, with glee at the situation, slyly comments. When I wake, it’s with a start because I’ve held my pee in for too long, as is my custom, and from your obscured position in the living room you hear it — the pee; if I’m feeling grotesque, a quite unproductive poo; the sigh of relief. After peeing, I tuck myself back under my quilt and reach for my phone where I see a bunch of missed messages from you. I instinctively know what they must mean, and I burst into my living room to find you sitting there, unassuming. We lock eyes and — STOP IT!
Stop it, stop it. You know what this feels like, you know how you get. You’ve been here before. It’s okay to feel sad. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay. But please try to stop daydreaming. Stop it, stop it, okay? Okay. You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re good.
At night, the chant more goes, Relax, relax, stop thinking, you’ve got this. Just a few more hours. You can sink in for a few more hours, and then it’ll be time to be awake and you won’t have to labor to stay asleep. If you wake up early, even better. Maybe you’ll be so tired tomorrow night, you’ll actually sleep through the whole night. Relax, relax — maybe I should just scroll to pass the ti — relax…(sigh) relax. Next to me, I imagine that the weight of my stuffed animals is a person keeping me company. I don’t actively entertain that it might be you, in part, because well — I’ve never done it with you. Would you sling your arm around me? Would we intermingle or spoon? Sleeping together inevitably must come after the ‘lock eyes and’ part, so you’ll understand how it feels too soon. Moreover, though, is the suspicion that I am suffering from straight loneliness, and I don’t like supplanting you into a nonspecific yearn. Yesterday, after peeing, I did check my phone, and woke to no messages from you. The disappointment settling down into my belly confirmed what even a lengthy evening walk could not deter me to do. As I later tried to drift into sleep, vainly hoping the greasy binge and shoddy cocktail would usher me into an untrampled repose, I mulled over how I had never noticed so many Mazdas as I had on my walk that day. In the daytime, They were always there, I noted, evading easy perception, as I stumbled along with my head in the clouds. But at night, I’ve recently taken to wishing I were back in my freshman dorm room triple, if only to fall asleep to the steady breaths and shifting motions of my roommates, too.
