I happened to notice there is a stage between dreaming and being awake. I noticed this at 5:00 AM on another cold morning of a sick week. A clogged nose forces me to stir and gasp for a real breath.

I am here, neither awake nor asleep, but something else. A combination of the two? An absence?

I am healthy enough to think, yet sick enough to wish to turn the thinking off. Is it really a combination of the two? Or an absence?

I think about the time passing. I think about how funny it is to be at full capacity like this when it means nothing. I think of the funniest jokes in the entire world and let them slip my mind. I think, I think, I think.

I’m trying to force myself to find rest again. I try to tire out my brain with an old trick: “Make a list of objects more opposite than the last.”

Toothbrush. Why is toothbrush always first? Is that really the most random thing that comes to mind? Very creative. Sidewalk. Skateboard. Sick. Healthy. Awake. Asleep. These feel too familiar.

This was supposed to be the first time in a long time I would be able to rest. Moments like these make it feel impossible to be exactly where I am supposed to be, doing what I am meant to be doing. There is always a comparison of extremes; a question of what’s happening on the other side; an assessment of being stuck in the middle of everything at once–out in the open with no cover, nowhere to go because everything’s closed at this hour.

Maybe tomorrow I will last until 6:00 AM.