11 pm

It’s 9:54 at night, and I’m writing this in the dark. 

If you could see me now, you’d probably have nightmares for the rest of your life. My hair’s been in a ponytail all day, which we both know means it looks like a bump-it gone wrong now that I’ve taken it down and tossed and turned on my pillow for a while. To make matters worse, the glow from my laptop is a burnt, Neyland Stadium orange because my background is one of those pictures from my trip to New Zealand when the sky was hazed from the wildfires in Australia. You get the picture: I probably look like a sick jack-o-lantern that a 9-year-old carved in an attempt to reproduce Angelica from the Rugrats.

You don’t know any of this, though, because you’re in my bed a couple of rooms away.

When I left, it seemed like you were asleep. But as soon as I made it to the hallway, I heard the sound of candy wrappers rustling. You once told me that you’ve never sucked on a Jolly Rancher in your sleep, so I’ll take you at your word and assume you’ve been faking it every night or something similar has happened. Would not taking you at your word be worse or better? I’m really not sure anymore.

But it’s probably all just in my head, because I’ll admit: I’ve been in a funk lately. Actually, I’m re-admitting it, because I’ve said those same words to you a dozen times by now. I even said them a few minutes ago. We were lying in bed—you sleepy, me awake—and you asked me what was on my mind. So I told you.

That was my mistake, right?

I’m an outsider to my own life sometimes—I can see that I’m moving and breathing and living, but I’m never really sure if I’m there. The past is a fog, and any future I can imagine for myself feels a lot like it’s someone else’s. I’m in the uncanny valley of my own personhood.

You still like it when I make that reference, don’t you? You were impressed the first time I did it that I knew what the uncanny valley was—a computer science concept, you thought. I still get a kick out of that. You had no idea that the uncanny valley came from Freud, that literature students are forced to sit through so much of his writing that it’s seared in our brains, that I wrote a paper not even six months ago using Freudian theory to talk about suicide in comedy tv shows. You still don’t know, since you’re never really sure how to ask about my work and I’m not sure how to tell you without making you reconsider how “important” you think my research area is. Mental health matters a lot to you, you’re always telling me, and it’s amazing that I’m not shying away from taboo topics. Would you like to read my paper sometime? You could tell me just how important that scene from the Office is where Michael pretends to hang himself in front of a group of kids.

In hindsight, I can see why telling you that it feels like my life is a video game that I’m watching someone else play might have made you feel uncomfortable. I did acknowledge how weird it was in the moment, trying to soften the blow of my reality for your sake. But I think I forget that nothing lands with you past 8pm unless it’s a joke about your feet having their own personality.

Even though we both knew your brain didn’t have enough processing power at that point to keep the conversation running, you did ask me if anything would help. I was honest about that too—my second mistake.

The people in my life who I love are the grounding tools that my therapist could only dream of. When I get to spend time with them, talk to them, sit with them, touch them, hear them—that’s when I feel the most real.

And that seems easy enough for you to help out with, right? You’re here all the time. We’re barely ever separated. And we’ve both got soft spots for hugs and hand-holding, so that’s just a recipe for success.

So then why didn’t you respond? Why did you hesitate when your hand instinctively reached out toward my shoulder? Why were your eyes closed, and why did your breathing level out? 

I don’t know if you’ve thought about this, but you can’t spend quality time with someone who’s not conscious. Your heavy arm across my stomach is not and has never been the touch I’ve needed. The human connection we have is pretty corpse-like more often than not, isn’t it? You spend all your energy working, and by the end of the day you’re done. But I’m still there—wishing, wanting, hoping that you might show me that you’re there too. The lightest touch, the most trivial of conversations—and yet you usually just fall asleep.

The Jolly Rancher debacle doesn’t even concern me anymore. What difference does it really make, whether you’re zonking out in the middle of the only quality time we have together or you’re feigning sleep to get out of it? The point is the same: you’re tired, I’m awake. You want to sleep, I’m in the way.

Lately I’ve been coming around to your way of thinking. I’m an obstacle to my own life. How’s that for an existential crisis at 10:21? I’m constantly doubting myself, unable to determine what’s real and what’s in my head. I don’t like to make decisions on any scale, because I don’t want to admit to myself that I don’t actually know what I want. So what am I even doing? On a daily basis, on the broader timeline of my life, in general?

I’m mostly just existing.

That’s not so bad, really, if you think about it. Maybe it’s the bare minimum for being a functioning human being, but at least it meets the requirement. I can exist in the world and make a full life out of that.

But that’s the problem, isn’t it? Because I don’t actually know if I exist anymore. Can I really exist if I’m on the outside looking in on my own life? If I see someone in the mirror I don’t recognize, if the decisions I’m making are out of my control, if time is hurling me toward a future that’s foreclosed—then what’s the point? Where am I in all of this?

Don’t worry, I won’t go off the deep end. Not tonight, darling. I’m starting to get sleepy, and I can hear you cracking your knuckles from the other side of the apartment. 

In a few minutes, I’ll make my way back to bed. I’ll slip in as gingerly as possible as the supporting role in your ruse, and I’ll close my eyes and listen to your breathing. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to fall asleep—or you, for that matter. But we will sleep, eventually. We will dream, eventually. We will meet in the morning, eventually.

And when the sun rises, none of this will have happened. You’ll hold me close, and I’ll giggle at your bedhead and your seven alarms. You’ll ask me how I slept, and you’ll accept the lie with ease. You’ll drag yourself out of bed, relocate yourself to the very couch I’m sitting on now, and wait for me to scramble some eggs the way you like. I’ll listen to you talk about the work you’re going to do, all the meetings on your schedule. And then we’ll start again.

When the morning comes, we will wind back the tape. We will be better at pretending. 

But now it’s 11pm, darling, and I’m very tired.

Caitlyn Georgiou earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in English from the University of Alabama. She is currently pursuing a PhD in literature from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she spends her time being bossed around by a miniature golden doodle and wondering if she'll ever get used to the snow. You can find her on Twitter at @_CatiewithaC_.