It’s almost midnight and the endless scrolling through pictures, memories and messages left on “read” are keeping you awake again. The sun has settled for the night, while the moon has taken over lighting up the darken sky.

The house is completely dark, without a single sign of life anywhere, except for the small opening of your bedroom door. A miniature ray of light beams through, pulling us in from the upstairs hallway. The sound of your keyboard firing rapidly, the same as a student trying to finish his essay five minutes before class, continues. The silence throughout out the rest of the house is almost palpable and feels it can be broken at any moment with a single breath.

You gaze at the illuminated sphere on the horizon, waiting for an answer to a question you have yet formulated, wondering how different things could be, and even hoping for a brighter morning. It’s the same ritual that has taken over your nights during these last few weeks, and oddly enough, always right on schedule, at midnight. 

“When will this ever end?” you ask yourself.

You reminisce to the nights when you would lay slowly on your pillow, which felt softer than a fresh cloud on a clear summer sky. You would fall asleep quicker than you could ever realize it, even before you could formulate an idea of what you would do the following day. Those were the best nights, when your biggest worry would just be to try and remember your dream, so you could attempt to explain it to your best friend, before he would start giving you a weird look.

“How things have changed” you ask yourself.

Suddenly, an overwhelming feeling invades your body, though a bone-chilling winter breeze rushed through your room, leaving you, frozen in front of your cold blue laptop screen. Your mind begins to swirl into a loose torpedo, to the point where you can’t even remember what you were just doing. You catch a very small moment of stillness and silence, which gets interrupted by a heavy and long sigh.

“I need some air!” you scream in your head.

In a swift motion you hop off your bed, throw on your most comfortable hoodie and slide yourself through the tiny door opening. After gliding down the stairs and through the living room, you complete the great escape through the side door. Once outside, you’re finally able to take in a deep breath filling up your lungs, as if you were trying to elevate like a hot air balloon and drift away from the house.

“Aaaahhhhh” you say out loud as you exhale.

Instead, you decide to run. Where exactly? Anywhere. The sound of your feet stomping on the ground with each stride you take, slowly build a tempo, which starts to match your breathing pattern. The street on which you run seems endless, but your speed increases the more you advance. Before you know it, you’ve ran out of your neighbourhood, and all the way to the docks near your old high school. The sound of the water hitting against the shore brings you back to reality, which halts your short marathon. You look out at the moon reflecting on the lake, and for a brief moment, you feel liberated. 

“I really needed this” you think to yourself, as you crack a smile.

Trust me life great, we all get those sleepless nights where we just want to grab everything and run away for a little while. Feeling overwhelmed by certain situations is completely normal, especially when it’s something new. Just remember to focus on the elements on which YOU have control, and the rest will align itself. If you focus too much on other uncontrollable factors, you’ll just be adding more weight on your shoulders making it harder to swim back to the top for a breath of fresh air. Things will get better with time and a brighter morning will come once the darkest night ends.