a.k.a. V.J.

It was hot today, around 90. After the sun went down, the temperature dropped into the 70s, but somehow remains uncomfortable. The air feels sticky and thick. Not great for sleeping.

This night reminds me of times when I was a kid on summer vacation, and it was too hot to sleep. I’d stay awake till the wee hours of the morning, sometimes all night. I was an insomniac back then and was no stranger to all-nighters. When there was no school or job to go to the next morning, that was all the excuse I needed to burn the midnight oil.

If I was lucky, there would be a good movie on TV to keep me company while all the normal, sensible people were slumbering away. If not, there was always my cheap bedside radio, playing tinny versions of the hits. In those days, radio stations had overnight DJs who took requests and played offbeat songs you’d rarely hear during daylight hours; and they spoke to the audience intimately, like we were all oddball night-owl co-conspirators.

I know now that my insomnia was rooted in anxiety. My young mind was constantly awash with confusion and worry and hyperactivity from my lifelong tendency to overanalyze everything. I just had a hard time shutting down and relaxing long enough to doze off. But at the time, I didn’t have the self-awareness or perspective to understand those root causes. I thought I was simply weird, and my parents would regularly tell me as much whenever the subject of my sleeping habits came up.

There was something sort of romantic and rebellious about staying up late. As silly as it sounds now, I regarded the night as an adversary to be conquered. If I could make it through to dawn, I would have completed some imagined hero’s journey.

My all-nighter days are well behind me now. I sleep pretty well, for the most part. Old age has transformed me into more of an early-to-bed-early-to-rise guy. But I remain something of an insomniac in spirit, if not actual practice. A humid July night like tonight almost makes me nostalgic for the night-owl life. Almost.