When I’m anxious, I can’t sleep. But when I’m tired, I get more anxious. Who designed this crappy system that loops in circles? That’s what I want to know.

The last time I was stuck in this loop, I spent an hour before bed cycling through sleep meditation podcasts, trying to find someone with a voice I like. I find a lot of the male voices unsettling, like there is a man in my room whispering in my ear. The podcast everyone recommends with the man who just tells a long, rambling story that is supposed to make you sleep because of how boring it is, but it stresses me out, because I keep waiting for him to get to the point, and I get worked up with how frustrating I find his diversions.

I finally found one that seems non-judgmental, where a woman says, ‘You’re not asleep, but you’re resting, and that’s good too. Enjoy your rest,’ and it calms me to know that this anonymous woman on a podcast is telling me it’s okay if I have failed at falling asleep but resting and lying quietly is good for me too. Thank you, lady on the podcast, for giving me permission not to get furious at myself, for letting me give my body and my brain a little encouragement, a B+ for resting, for trying hard.

Tonight, I decide to follow the advice I read on a forum for insomniacs, which is to ‘change up your environment’. Leave your bedroom for an hour, and then go back. Even if you are tired, try to force yourself to stay awake for that hour. So I get up from my bed and head for the lounge room. It feels like the right time to bring out my secret weapon. It’s time to start rewatching one of my top-tier comfort TV shows from the very beginning.

I take my laptop and set it up on the coffee table. I am settling in, wrapped in a light blanket, when I hear someone in the kitchen, boiling the kettle, pouring hot water, and then footsteps coming towards me.

‘What are you doing?’ Jesse asks from the doorway. He’s wearing glasses. I’ve never seen him wear glasses before.

‘I’m watching a show,’ I say.

‘It’s pretty late.’ He’s leaning against the door jam, blowing on his tea.

‘I know. I can’t sleep.’

‘Me neither,’ he says, cheerfully, in the way of someone who doesn’t have insomnia, or maybe doesn’t have high expectations for what they want to do the next day and can treat a night without sleep as an interesting occurrence rather than the torturous cage of pain.

‘Are you drinking my Sleepytime tea?’ I say, squinting at his mug. Which isn’t his mug, but my mug, oversize and polkadotted, my second-favourite mug.