Night Walker

I’d say it started in my preteens. I know how it came to be; in order to try to watch early morning cartoon and anime episodes, I would set an alarm. In the beginning, I’d set it half an hour to an hour out from the episode. This was to allow myself a few minutes each to coax myself from beneath the warm covers, use the restroom, sneak downstairs, and get settled.

Oddly, most of the time I didn’t watch the shows after all. I was often too afraid to turn the T.V. on; I feared getting caught and yelled at by my dad for being up and not sleeping. Even with the volume on low, I worried the glow of the emitted light would get his attention. So I’d stand there on the lowest floor of the house, in the dark, too nervous to try to watch the things I got up to see but not eager to return to bed.

I then started bringing my CD player and CD collection to listen to before an episode, or for the days I didn’t have the guts but didn’t want to sleep. To help keep myself awake and warm, I began pacing with my CD player, and the more I kept chickening out about turning on the T.V., the more and more I began pacing and listening to music. Eventually, it got to a point that I wasn’t setting the alarm to watch episodes - I was getting up in the middle of the night to pace for a few hours in the dark. I’d go to sleep for about 3 hours, get up and walk for a few hours, then go back to bed. Got pretty interesting during high school when I would get up at 4:30 A.M. to start getting ready. I’m, uh, not a morning person. I’ll get up and run with any sleep schedule my family gives me, but left to my own devices, I’m usually not going to sleep until 4-8 A.M. - don’t expect me to be up until about 2-5 P.M. or so, depending.

The only light in the bottom level at night was the glow of the VCR time display. I had to be mindful of two things as I navigated the carpet in the dark: the bricks beneath the wood-burning stove, which I could trip on - though much more often I stubbed a toe on - and a small piece of leftover carpet sample from when my parents replaced the carpet in the house. It was used as a mini rug in front of the wood-burning stove, and saved the actual carpet from a few scorch marks over the years. During my nighttime pacings, it would often be shifted by my feet, and if I wasn’t careful about replacing it properly, it was a dead giveaway to dad that I had been up during the night again. He’d know why it was moved, but still ask. He never asked why I paced though, even when he caught me. If he did catch me up, I found out when the light flicked on and I’d hear a sharp hiss of, “Get back to bed!”

Dad was the difficult one to avoid. If he didn’t come up to bed that long before I decided to head down, he’d still be alert enough to notice me sneak downstairs and then not come back up. Or he’d hear me on the stairs. On quiet nights, the changing of a CD was loud enough to tip him off. Sometimes he wouldn’t notice me when he came down to use the restroom on the lower level, but 8/10 times, I’d get caught if he came down. Sometimes he’d come into the kitchen to get a drink, and the sound of my CD player as it worked and the music through the earbuds betrayed me.

Mom, by comparison, was much easier to avoid. She was a deep sleeper; nothing I did ever woke her or tipped her off that I was out of bed. Unlike dad, she’d always use the upstairs bathroom, so I never had to worry about her coming downstairs to the lowest level, and she never looked. I’d only see her as she walked into the kitchen to get a drink at night, often preceded by her turning a light on in the upper hallway, which spilled enough ahead of time that I could tuck myself into a corner in the room. It always felt weird watching her feet through the slats dividing the kitchen level from the downstairs. I never recall being spotted by my mother.

Not gonna lie, it kind of makes me laugh how easily I could have startled my parents from the dark of our own house. I wonder if they knew just how often I didn’t sleep. I assume they didn’t.

It’s really a wonder I got any sleep as a teenager. Besides my near-nightly habit of pacing, I struggled with both insomnia and, well, disturbing dreams. I don’t know what exactly constitutes a nightmare; does it require a physical response, or is it just any “bad” or distressing dream? I always thought a “true” nightmare would require a physical reaction: a fast heartbeat, a jolting start, profuse sweat. No matter the dark content, I’ve rarely noticed such things. I mean, I guess maybe I will start awake, but it’s difficult to tell. I think that’s still how I feel, though I’ve begun to wonder if I’ve misclassified them and maybe I’ve experienced primarily nightmares for the better part of my 30 years. Fun times.

Good, bad, or indifferent, I used to love how vivid the dreams were. Any that I recall are in full, vibrant color. They feel real, and so do the feelings and emotions I experience in them. Therein lies the problem. Fear and anxiety, humiliation, envy - each runs rampant in my subconscious. Largely fear. I can count on one hand the number of dreams that were actually good and enjoyable; all else are odd or dark. Friends and family warp into horrid versions of themselves - fanged and possessed with a relentless madness burning in their eyes. Monsters or beasts chase me until I’m ragged and frequently kill and eat me. Even my favorite movie monsters of Tremors and Jurassic Park have swallowed me without thought. Men - often ones I don’t know - stalk me through labyrinths, hotels, even a house that should be my parents’, but isn’t quite right. They hunt me with the usual looming threats of men, and it’s never been pretty when they’ve caught me - I’ll spare those particularly dark details. Even disasters such as tornadoes and erupting volcanoes try to end me. Something lurks in the claustrophobic dark of a submerged tank; my teeth break and fall out; I never seem to get the doors closed and/or locked before whatever is after me damn near gets me and I struggle to keep them out. It is largely fear that runs the show when I sleep.

Okay, having admitted all that, maybe nightmare is the right classification….

Worse than the nightmares or whatever they are, however, was the insomnia. While I had a recent bout of it for a few weeks early in 2021, the worst of it to date was in my teen years. I hated having insomnia.

Older family members I had trusted as a young child had quickly broken my trust. They meant well, but I learned early that I couldn’t trust even my own family with anything… heavy. Secret. After that, I trusted no adult with my fears, insecurities, issues….

My parents never seemed to understand and I always felt like I had to defend everything I thought, felt, said…. And eventually I stopped telling them anything.

I also didn’t want to add more to their plates, as things were often chaotic enough with the special needs of my brother. My half-sister, about 13 years older than myself, moved out when she was 18; I was about 5. As such, I didn’t see much of her growing up and we never developed a bond where I would consider sharing such things with her. She tried, I know, but… there's such a disconnect between us. Mom even likes to comment that we are like water and oil; we don't mix.

So, right. Insomnia….

As well as my odd sibling situation, I was either a friendless loner or, when I did have some loosely-termed friends, I didn’t want to bother them either. I was known to be angry and depressing to many of my peers, and I only had someone’s ear for a brief moment before I was simply too much. Basically, I trusted no one, and had no one to talk to about anything that was too much - and there was so much that was too much, starting when I was 7. Things my parents didn’t consider the ramifications of forced me into a dark, bleak corner, and it’s astounding the kinds of thoughts I started having even that young. But because I talked to no one about it, I didn't realize what those thoughts signified for my childhood - if you can even call it that. There was no one to talk to, so….

I didn’t have the resources or time to process a lot of things for myself. School demanded my attention for most of the day. I’d come home to have the rest of my day dictated by the demands of my parents and the needs of my brother. Not only did I not have anyone I could trust and talk to - I didn't even have time for myself.

That’s not to say that I didn't get to play; I just know that after a certain age, I was largely expected to help with my brother. I was given an allowance for it. Mom worked full-time and dad was a stay-at-home parent who did side jobs for a little extra cash. Usually, he’d try to do this while we were at school, but more people approached him with more odd jobs as time went on, and more of his responsibilities were transferred to me as I grew older. I couldn’t do much after school; I had to get home to get my brother off the bus, or dad would take us with him while he did a project and I’d be stuck in the car with my brother waiting. I spent a lot of time kicking things around in the dirt of the local salvage yard while dad worked to pull parts. Summer break was mostly spent feeding, changing, and watching my brother while our parents worked. So for years my nightly pacing was the only time I had to myself, uninterrupted, to think.

But the insomnia….

Winter was rough. Dad would frequently fall asleep on the couch near the wood-burning stove, as he would tend to the fire all night. I dared not pace in my room, as it is above this couch and of course the floor squeaks; dad would wake and tell me to go back to bed. Sometimes, too restless, I would risk it and go downstairs. Between the crackling of the fire and the noise of the fans used to circulate the air, sometimes I could pace a little in a small corner of the lower level.

More often though, I’d had to settle for sitting miserably next to the couch, hyper-aware of my dad’s proximity. I couldn't sleep and couldn’t pace, so I’d sit on the floor with my dad’s feet only an armrest away from my head and watch the flames through the ¼ inch gap in the stove doors, or find myself spacing out at the beam of light which spilled from the same gap. About 6/10 times, dad would wake up with the loud pop of a sap pocket and I'd get caught. Rarely, I’d time it just right where I didn’t go down until dad had thrown the last bit of wood in and returned to his normal bed. But mostly, winter left me disappointed.

While I’d had long bouts of insomnia before, it was during the winter of 2006 when the worst nights began. I had fallen very hard for an older classmate when I was 15, and while at first my affections seemed to be reciprocated… things fell apart so quickly, and I was left devastated. I’ve since riddled out that the reason it hurt so much was because he was the first person that actually seemed to hear me and understand - even if I got a bit heavy. The few days of our “relationship”, I was the happiest I had ever been. Shit; have ever been, and it's so painful to say that with the wonderful man I'm with nowadays. But he just got me in a way no one else has. Cloud nine - for 3 days.

But he changed his mind. My attachment to him was unfortunately inappropriate, misconstrued, and I said and did things that I am not proud of today because I didn’t know how to handle that shit. And of course I told my parents nothing. I spent most of my nights during holiday break that year staring at that little beam of light dancing on the carpet, seeking comfort.

I found none.

The next year, 2007, months before I turned 16, an incident at school left me barely functioning. Sexual harassment, by an older classmate, in front of a group of my peers. Despite multiple reports from peers and even video evidence, it was basically chalked up to “boys will be boys”, not taken seriously because earlier in the video I flipped off the camera, and ultimately nothing was done for what was done to me. And my sister wonders why I have an issue with that statement and attitude. Maybe she never learned of that incident, though. I certainly didn’t tell her. Of course, I wouldn’t rule out my mother telling her about it….

It was easy to ignore and hide what had been done to me and go through the daily motions. After years of 3-4 hours of sleep and concealing my normal distress, I had gotten really good at getting myself ready in the morning even if I was in absolute crisis internally. By that point, it was just normal to me, and I thought little of it besides how much things sucked. But I was left feeling so vulnerable after this incident, I began doing things I usually wouldn’t in attempts just to get someone in my corner. While I grew comfortable in the few “friendships” that spawned from some questionable behaviors, they too were doomed to fail and fall apart, and I was left as vulnerable as I’d been.

It’s difficult to say where the insomnia started - or ended. It feels like it’s been as much a part of my nighttime experiences as the pacing and the bad dreams. It was full of terror for the future; the unknowns. It was raw, and ate away at me like acid. Kinda like all the silent tears I tried choking back; after so many, my face felt equally raw. I honestly don’t understand how I coped all those years; I felt like I couldn’t do anything about it, so I just lay there and let it consume me, night after night. Month after month. Year after year. My bout of insomnia for a few weeks this year well reminded me of how torturous it is. I had blissfully forgotten in a few years of freedom.

It’s always so hard to admit these things. They’re so personal. So close. So fucking painful. I am equally tortured by holding it to myself, though, so many years. That’s why I overshare to strangers one random night and then disappear; I’ll likely never see them again, so telling them these things shouldn’t come back to bite me like they usually do. Or writing.

I used to keep a dream journal - something from my one semester of psychology in high school. Eventually I stopped keeping track, once I realized how darkly themed so many were, worried what anyone who might find the journal might say (a well-founded fear, as one of the most devastating invasions of privacy my parents committed against me was reading my journal when I was 16). I’m undecided if I will try to pick up the habit of recording the dreams again. Honestly, I’ve found a potent remedy that renders 98% of my sleep a sweet oblivion; I rarely recall any dreams now, and am often glad for it. With insomnia a mostly distant memory and dreams equally forgotten, there now mainly remains my last nighttime quirk; my walking.

I never stopped my habit of pacing and listening to music; today, my days aren’t complete until I’ve done so for at least one hour, but often many more. It isn’t uncommon for me to hit 10,000 steps in 3 hours. It’s still my time to think, and create, and try to work through, well, everything. To chew and digest experiences. I think about the characters and arcs in my stories, housework/cooking some days, current issues and past... traumas, I guess. It’s my time to connect with song lyrics, feel out where I am that day. Is it a housework kind of day, a workday, or a thinking day?

My partner accepted this strangeness without question nearly seven years ago, and he frequently sleeps on our couch below the office I pace in, completely unbothered by my habit. He still comes and interrupts on occasion, but for the most part, I now have the time to ask myself what I want. What I need. But those are new questions for me; I’m still pretty crappy about it. Like, novice-level crappy/I-don't-know-how-this-works-in-the-slightest crappy. But at least I know work needs to be done there now, I guess. Silver linings, yeah?

Ugh. I hate trying to be optimistic on top of it all. Sometimes shit is heavy and it sucks - just let it be heavy and suck for a spell. I’ll talk myself through it, I’ll get back up, I’ll keep going… but sometimes it just needs to be what it’s going to be. Quit trying to make it pretty.

Autumn is here and winter is fast approaching, and with them will come a slight change in my pattern. In the years since I started staying with my boyfriend, my pacing occurs at any time and length of day. However, the colder weather encroaching seems to trigger something within. It signals to me to sleep less, and wake in the quiet, cold dark, eager to indulge my ingrained habit in the gloom. There’s no sitting by a couch miserably here in winter. Just a walk with the parts of me that have long needed attention - each sharing with me their own grievances, and each looking for understanding as to why they are the way they are.

Just the faint glow from the scattering of candles in my office and the blue hue that fills the room after snow has fallen. There’s comfort in the morning chill, even as the hardwood saps the heat through my very feet and I shiver around a fresh cup of coffee. Comfort in the stories I tell myself as I pour through an iPod outfitted with more songs than any CD holder could ever contain or scroll through my Spotify playlists. Connection with every line and verse that strikes a chord within and draws that sense of camaraderie out: I hear you; I get you; I understand that; I can sympathize. Recognition of those parts in me that no one else has seen, so no one ever validates them.

I look forward to the coming change of seasons. To strip my own mind down, bare as the trees that have shed their leaves, and seeing it as it can only be seen through the right perspective. I always loved the dank and drear of that precipice between fall and winter: fallen leaves, light snow, cold rains. It is my favorite.

My boyfriend has tried to talk me into finding therapy for years now, and I’ve stubbornly declined. The fear. The stigma. Trust issues. The comfort of a lifetime of familiar thought processes. I don’t think I’m ready to tackle and dismantle those yet; I’m still fiddling around with the self-taught tutorials and these concepts are new. I am ready to share though, here, in a way. I can take my time to think and write, and there’s no annoying issues of trying to verbally explain and getting choked up or being unable to effectively convey my meaning.

I didn’t keep a journal anymore after the former one was read at 16. I didn’t trust writing down my candid thoughts anymore. They’d be found and used against me; they already had, so why wouldn’t they again? Everything I’ve worked on for the last several years has been kept private. But I started a new one this year. Something new began eating at me; I’m still digesting it myself.

I’m now beginning to think that I should take a break from my helpful habit - the controversial one that helps me sleep dreamlessly. Maybe a 3 month hiatus. Write down any dreams in a new dream journal, then see where I'm at. If I do eventually seek a therapist, it can only help. Maybe pay more attention to if I do start awake, for classification purposes. Bad dream or nightmare? Let’s find out! Seriously, though, not excited. But I am curious.

I’ve had an interesting relationship with sleep all these years, and if there’s a habit I don’t mind, it’s that of being a night walker. I’m not complete without it. I know it’s a control and comfort thing - something born out of the need for my own time - but it is not without its perks. It’s been such a part of my life for probably about two decades now, it’s hard to imagine not doing it. I don’t really want to give it up at this time. I'm afraid if I seek help, they'll make me stop.

Lately, though, it’s been at a new high. Whatever I've been digesting this year, it’s really been kicking my metaphorical metabolism into high gear, particularly after some family drama a month ago. Since then, I’ve met my goal of 10,000 steps for 25 days in a row; not only that, but I’ve been hitting double and triple the goal the last few weeks. It’s led to much heavy thinking and sorting emotions, to this and several other pieces in the works, and to a fair bit of writing overall. I will say I’m in a bit of a weird place, but I’ll have to think on that more before I can elaborate. I’ve felt so guilty about how little I’ve spent with my boyfriend the last months, but I just want to pace, listen, think, sort….

It’s the best kind of journey; the one that costs nothing, takes you anywhere or anytime instantly, and allows for any variety of situations. It’s certainly much better than the context I intend to share later.

Playlist.

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