It’s Monday night, and I can’t sleep. My ovaries still hurt, not too much, but enough to be distracting, and I’m thinking about Dad. More accurately, trying hard not to think about him. We didn’t have brunch yesterday. As predicted, he texted me saying he had woken up with a sore back (one of his many euphemisms for a hangover) and I said feel better soon, and then he called me that night and I didn’t answer, because I didn’t want to have to tell him about my burst cyst or any of that. He left me a voicemail saying he would transfer some money into my bank account, and I didn’t reply to that either, because I was afraid he would ask how much money I wanted from him, and I didn’t want the pressure of saying a figure.

So I’m awake thinking about Dad and also about my essay that I need to redo, and my short story that I can’t finish, and my failure to be a runner, and worrying about Lauren, who didn’t respond to my text tonight so I assume she’s out drinking and that old kick of anxiety still hits me. Sometimes it’s harder being further away, having even less power to help her.

When I can’t sleep, in the moment, it can feel like a catastrophe. It’s not, and a small, rational part of my brain knows that, but generally it goes like this: I will look at my phone and see 1:45 am (I can still get plenty of sleep, it’s fine), 2 am (still can get four or five hours, that’s heaps), 2:30 am (I should get up, read a book, but instead I might scroll through social media, even though I know the phone itself is probably largely responsible for my insomnia, and I alternate between funny videos that hype up my mind and scary news reports that set my heart racing), 3 am (now I’m feeling weepy, and furious at my brain: just sleep, please just sleep, but I feel wide awake, hours away from possible sleep), 3.30 am (a sleep podcast, maybe, but where are my headphones, maybe I need a glass of water or to get up and pee, even though I know doing all of that makes me more awake), 4 am (you’ve got through a day with no sleep before, you can survive this), 4:30 am (I want to scream because I’m so furious at this body that won’t sleep: just sleep, stop thinking, you trash-heap of a brain), 5.30 am (I might have dozed off for five minutes, this is good, I got some minutes of sleep, I’ll be totally fine!), 7:00 am (wake from a deep sleep as alarm goes off, eyes feel gritty and like they are full of sand, head feels like it’s wobbling on a stick).