3 a.m.

Last night I couldn't sleep. All around me my friends had closed their eyes and evened out their breathings and there I was, eyes wide open in the pitch black.

And despite knowing I could reach out a finger and poke them into the staying awake with me, despite knowing they would gladly talk and listen, I just crept outside to look at the stars.


And it was so quiet I thought for a moment that I had gone deaf.

I don't think I have ever felt as lonely in my life. Not in the summer weeks spent alone in a house too big for me. Not on the deck of a ship in the middle of a sea at four in the morning. Not ever.





But there are the things so much bigger than three-in-the-morning loneliness.

There is winter sunshine and there are nights in bars and in the almost-countryside. There are upcoming birthdays and early mornings and cafés and midnight confessions.

There is this gruelling, grinding, endless uphill battle of trusting. It might be the most difficult thing I have ever done but I refuse to stop trying.

I will forgive myself these insomniatic weaknesses. I will forgive myself, and others, and I will go on. And the next time I'm awake at 3 a.m. and I feel my ribs closing in on my lungs, I will wake someone up so I don't have to look at the stars alone.