I’m awake in the wee hours. “The bottom of the night”, I used to call it – it’s just minutes shy of 03:00 a.m. Why the hell am I awake? I feel… sleepy… but I’m not asleep. I toss restlessly for a few minutes. I get up to pee, take an antacid, and go back to bed. Sleep chases me, but doesn’t catch me. lol
I finally just get up. Why not? I’ve got this hotel room to myself, and the world sleeps around me. Beach campfires that were lit in the darkness, visible in the distance, are extinguished now. The lights of late-night beachcombers are gone. Dinghies and fisherman, too, have all gone. There’s nothing but darkness beyond the balcony and across the bay. So quiet. My right knee aches for no particular reason – is that what’s keeping me from going back to sleep? Pain? How commonplace! I pour a glass of cold water and turn on a light. My back aches… more pain. Ridiculous. I’m annoyed by the pain, mostly because it seems such a stupid thing to be dealing with when I could be asleep, dreaming, resting, healing to take on a new day.
…Pain is part of the human condition, and most people have some, whether we see it or not…
I sip my water and let my mind move on. It’s late for it, and it may make me wakeful, but I don’t have to work, and if I chose to do so, I could nap all day tomorrow simply by choosing to… so… why would I sit here suffering? I mean, aside from suffering also being part of the human condition? lol I put a capsaicin patch on my knee. It helps.
…Now I’ve got fucking hiccups…
I breathe, exhale, and relax. The quiet is pleasant and uninterrupted by any concern about waking anyone else. I feel relaxed and contented, if not physically comfortable. Small win, but I’ll take it – it’s nice to be wakeful in the night with no hint of anxiety. Sure, sure, I could be sleeping right now, but I’m not, and that’s okay, too. I’m okay for all observed values of okay, aside from a bit of physical pain – and let’s not kid ourselves, eh? A lot of people have it worse right now, at this very moment, dealing with pain, sorrow, disadvantage, hardship, anxiety…fucking actual bombs… there are so many things that can and do go wrong in a human lifetime. I’m grateful that the only thing amiss for me in this moment is that I’m awake at 03:00 a.m. I’ve got this… (If you know, you know – if it’s 3 a.m. as you read this, I recommend headphones before you click the link. lol).
G’damn, I should fucking go back to bed. I laugh quietly. Now I’m not only awake, I’m managing to have a good time with it, feeling merry, feeling… joyful. A great playlist and Bluetooth headphones; I am untethered and free, dancing in the darkness. lol Good grief, humans are weird. I smile to myself, enjoying the moment, aware that somewhere “out there” on the fringes of the many people I have known, and lives once lived, the Party People are probably also dancing, wrecking themselves midst the house-parties that never end, in some un-named trap house somewhere far away. My recollections connect me to them by a mere thread between the recalled “then” and the lived “now”. I’m okay with that – I’m not about that life. lol I do love the music…
The music plays, and I dance on. Eventually, I’ll sleep, wake, and begin again.
Evening Light 