The entire world has gone silent. Sane people have fallen asleep. There is the slight thrum of batteries and wires, and the slightest tapping against your phone as you text. The blue light is a mere two inches from your face as you fight to stay awake. This conversation is important. Monumental. It will change the trajectory of your life. You CANNOT fall asleep.
You won’t remember the contents of the conversation in a week’s time, no matter how monumental or life-changing. Your brain will probably be too fried from all the missed sleep, but you’ll remember the vibes. The pure exhaustion of still being awake at 4am, the inability to tell your friend to shut up and go to sleep, the adrenaline of being on the same delirious wavelength as someone else. At this hour, they are the only person in this world who understands you. No one else has ever understood you like this before.
Now, some boring person is going to tell me that this is revenge bedtime procrastination. That I’m, apparently, making up for all the time lost through the day to responsibilities and, like, actually doing stuff. They’re going to tell me that it’s, “not healthy.” Okay, whatever, so they would be right. But, after a long, hard day of just constantly going through the zombie motions of doing stuff, do we not have the right to turn our brains on (even if it is right when we are meant to be turning them off) and tell our equally as deranged friend all about our very important midnight thoughts?
In these early morning/late night hours, when the world is dead and you are just buzzing from tiredness, it always feels like this exact moment is time you won’t ever get back. As if this, right here, right now, is a memory that you will never have a chance to make again. Forget parties, forget drugs — this is what being young is all about!
Your body feels on the verge of collapse, your eyes can’t hold open much longer, your phone is slipping out of your fingers incrementally, and your friend has just said goodnight for the fifth time that night, before miraculously having another thought that can’t wait until the morning. Do you even watch the hours tick by, or is it too much of a blur for you to care anymore? Doesn’t killing your body ever so slowly feel so exhilarating?
Don’t listen to the boring people, the ones with their 9pm bedtimes and healthy sleeping habits. They’re stealing your youth from you. This moment is monumental, and don’t you forget it. Have that useless discussion. Discover the patriarchy for the first time ever. Like, just talk to your friends.
