An uneven white surface.  My eyes trace the rough outline of the popcorn ceiling above me, each raised bump casting a tiny, oddly-shaped shadow.  I lie awake in my bed, staring upwards.  This is what I have been doing for the last four hours.  I glance at my clock.  2:36 a.m. flashes back at me, the red numbers searing into my brain.  Make that four and a half hours.  I close my eyes, but the numbers stay with me, burning the backs of my eyelids.

I glance at my window.  The shade is pulled down, blocking my view of the night outside, but I know what I would see if I lifted it: my world under a heavy black blanket, a settled darkness that seems to bring sleep to everyone but me.

Being the only one awake for what seems like miles is scary, like if something tragic were to happen, I would stand alone fighting against it.  I feel unnatural, afraid of my own body and its choice to remain awake, even when sleep seems so necessary.  How can I possibly survive through tomorrow when my brain has not spent any time shutting down and recovering?  I shudder.  I have barely slept in weeks, going through a constant cycle of sleepless nights and a few short hours of rest.  The nights when my brain was able to turn off and send me into a deep river of peacefulness and serenity seem so far away, distant memories of the past.  Sleep has become a luxury.

Being awake while everyone else is asleep is a chance to be left alone with my thoughts, to ponder over life’s greatest mysteries with no interruptions.  This would be a positive thing, if not for the weight pressing down on me.  This is not the heavy blanket of sleep I have been longing for.  No, this is different.  Instead of having a calming and reassuring effect on me, this weight feels like a burden.  And this burden has a name: Stress.
Stress from school, dance, family and friends has built up inside me.  Anxiety has traveled with me everywhere I have gone recently.  And now this stress is threatening to burst out of me.  And it does.  The stress explodes, coating my room with feelings and thoughts and regrets and memories.  It sticks to the walls, oozes across the floor, drips from my popcorn ceilings.  I let it all out.

I watch with satisfaction as my fears slip away, and the burden is lifted off of me.  I am content, if only for right now.  The moment my stress dissolves, I feel the familiar tug of slumber that I have missed ever-so-much.  It is like a reward for learning to let things go.  I feel a smile forming on my lips, and I keep it there as I let my head fall back gently onto my tear-stained pillow.  My eyelids flutter closed, allowing myself to drift off for the last few remaining hours before the sun will rise, bringing morning and the start of a new day.