My moms always say I’m able to pass out anywhere, because when I was a baby, we lived in a rundown apartment near San José State, and all our neighbors were rowdy college students who partied every night of the week. Somehow, I managed to sleep through the sounds of beer pong and thumping EDM that made our floors and walls vibrate. They claim this origin story explains why I have to turn my phone alarm to top volume in order for it to wake me up on time for school. They also think it’s the reason I’ve managed to sleep through every earthquake we’ve ever had, but that’s only half true. Sometimes I only pretend to sleep when they run out to the living room to check on me, because who wants to watch two middle-aged women frantically demonstrate how to drop, cover, and hold on in the dead of night? Not me.

Shifting tectonic plates aside, I used to pride myself on the fact that I could fall asleep the moment I closed my eyes. Parisa once burst into tears when I said I thought the ability to turn your brain off quickly was a sign of mental stability. (It takes her at least forty-five minutes to fall asleep at night.) But looking back, my comment, hurtful as it may have been, was a thousand percent accurate. This version of me, the one who can’t stop her mind from spinning, is slowly losing her grip on reality.

I’ve tried everything the internet has told me to try: warm milk, melatonin chews, sleep meditations, abstaining from refined sugar and soda after six PM—but I still can’t seem to fall asleep. The past ten days, I turn off the lights, stare at the ceiling for a solid hour, then give up and decide to binge-watch whatever escapist television show the Netflix algorithm curates for me. It knows I need mindless entertainment. Anything that won’t remind me of the fact that people are dying and that enough of them are my age to make me afraid to ever hug another human being again.

Tonight, that entertainment comes in the form of a docusoap about gorgeous real estate agents in Los Angeles, all of whom can somehow afford a collection of designer handbags. Right now I feel a real connection to the pretty girl, who’s tearing up in a four-star hotel room because her husband informed her that he’d filed for divorce… via text message. I get it, I want to tell her. The bottom could fall out at any moment. Life is scary and unpredictable.