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Letters from the Prison of My Mind
#1: an introduction
Hello!
I hate myself for it, but there’s really not much more I can do other than sitting here, bored out of my mind. So here we go, I’m writing to you from my own personal prison of insomnia! Straight from my bed, hot off the presses, here they are; my thoughts laid in front of your eyes.
I made a new playlist tonight, and it’s been treating me well, seeing as I think this will be another accidental all-nighter. Usually I can make it through a few hours and then I’m ready to sleep, but recently my body has been out to get me, so this doesn’t come as much of a surprise. Cause every now and then I stay up all night long, and it hasn’t happened in awhile, but I suspect tonight will change that.
Anyway, the playlist I made was inspired by looking out my window and at the snow-covered trees. Call me a sap or something along those lines, but I have emotions too. You even yell at me for pretending I don’t have any most of the time, but emotions aren’t very helpful are they? I suppose they’re how people can still be nice to others, but when someone acts on impulse because of an emotion, that’s hardly ever helpful. Maybe that’s the ultimate goal of a healthy mental balance, to battle against the extreme that’s programmed into you and balance your reactions with logic, or to become more empathetic. I know some people who have high emotional responses but aren’t very empathetic, and that’s so odd to me. Empathy is a very good thing, though I think too much of it could be another breaking point to the world. Like I’ve said, it’s the balance, the white and the Black Keys playing as a whole. You’re going to learn very quickly that getting off topic is a common thing in these letters.
Synapses fire and connections are made, so who am I to deny a solid connection? If it means getting off topic, maybe that’s okay. I’ll probably get to talk about more interesting things if I get off topic; provided you’re still able to follow along. Not that you’ll ever receive these letters though, they’ll be locked up and held close to me. Just Incase... just Incase I admit something or talk about something that I wouldn’t normally feel comfortable disclosing, okay? Okay, I’m glad you agree, Fictional Brian. Not that anything here isn’t fictional. Just let me immerse myself in this insomnia-filled world, as writing letters and aiming to never send them to someone is far more acceptable than sitting up in bed at 4am and talking to myself.
Did you know that in middle school I used to make secret calls to my best friend at the time? I think that’s around the time that I started staying up late. Of course as a child I would want to stay up late with my parents, but it was in middle school that I started loosing real sleep. It’s been so long since I’ve regularly gone to bed at 10:00pm, cause I think in eighth grade my normal time was 2:00am. Anyway, this friend I had was very close to me, and I honestly can’t remember how we got to be so close. We hardly talked in school, but then the second the bell rung we’d start texting. We had a few classes together, I remember in one class I was leaning against his legs while sitting on the floor and listening to a new album that had just been released. People in my grade were shipping gay couples that year, and I think some people thought we dated. I guess it’s plausible, but entirely incorrect.
The first conversation I remember having with him was trying to get him to tell me who he liked, and he liked this other guy that was kinda popular and very straight. The classic tragedy. Either way, we were just very close friends that connected on a higher level than most friendships at that time. So we would barely talk at school aside from the few classes we had together, but we would text until kingdom come. We’d talk about his love for the guy and I’d try to comfort him, telling him sweet, meaningless comforts. He’d help me through my anxiety and self-deprecating bouts just the same, telling me I really was worth what I had. Sometimes we’d talk about random things like cars and the stars in the sky. I told him about the cliche of feeling incredibly small while looking at the sky, and we’d talk about life. He told me once that all he wanted was to be loved, and I asked him why he hadn’t accepted the girl that had recently confessed to him. He told me that he wanted someone who wasn’t like that girl, and he told me that he wouldn’t mind it if I confessed, he said he’d probably say yes to me and date me. I reminded him of his love for the straight boy, and he said I was right, that it’s not good to have a cheap replacement.
What about you? Are you like so many of the friendships I’ve had before? If I confessed would you tell me that you would’ve dated me if it was last year? Or that you couldn’t accept because you’re in love with someone else? Would I still always be second-best?
We don’t talk about our love lives very often, Fictional Brian, so I’m not very sure how good of a match I’d be for you. Well, let me make a correction, we do talk about relationships and giving advice and holding hands and what the difference between a date and hanging out is, you just give me ambiguous answers that I can’t draw information from.
You tell me not to overthink what you say, but then when you promise to talk to me about it you never do. I guess your reassertions are helpful and calm me down for a bit, but I’m writing you this letter at 4:28 in the morning, what else am I left to overthink at this time? Space? Matter? Gravity? DNA? (The answer is that yes, I’ve thought about all of those, and no, I don’t want to go back there)
Actually, insomnia treats existential crises quite well. I had one just the other day, about dreams. You see, I have incredibly vivid dreams. Usually I can smell, touch, taste, see, and hear everything around me. A few years ago I had one dream that I’ll never forget. It was about me and my crush, and we were in a forest. It was early in the morning so the dew was still on the grass and a mist left mixed within the trees, and I could practically taste the morning rain. We’d been sitting on a hammock together and he sat there with me and just hugged me, hugged me so tight. I had a cup of creamed coffee in my left hand, nearly at my lips so that it invaded my senses, but the moment his arms reached around me I set it down and nuzzled into him, not caring about whatever happened to it. The only unfortunate thing was that he never kissed me, and I don’t get kissed often in dreams. I don’t get to hold hands in dreams either, and I think it’s my brain’s way of holding something as precious for each relationship.
I also had a dream that you died and I had to speak at your funeral once. It took me almost thirty minutes to figure out if the dream was real or not. That’s the worst part of having such vivid dreams, I’m often left wondering what is reality and what isn’t. I thought you died, honest to god I did, and I was too afraid to call you and find out, thinking I’d get your parents telling me that you died and we’d just finished with the funeral. That morning was terrifying, while the morning after the aforementioned dream was mostly disappointing, though I knew I’d never hug him in real life.
thats the crisis though, how do I know that what happens while I’m “awake” isn’t just an elaborate dream? We can’t every truly experience being a different person or seeing something from their eyes, so how do we know that other people aren’t just figments of our own imaginations? How can I be sure that my dreams aren’t the true reality?
Remember the friend I told you about earlier? The one that I was very close to? Sometimes we’d call each other at 2:00am too. We’d always stay up late, our conversations getting more and more personal as the night went on. I forget why we called each other for the first time, probably just that one of us had a story but didn’t feel like typing. But that became more regular. We’d call each other when we got too tired to text, though we had to stay quiet so as to not wake up our parents. But the whole calling each other thing became so helpful for me. I remember I had a panic attack while in public by myself once and I called him, it was lovely that he just talked to me, helped me calm down faster than I would otherwise. There was also one time when I was outside looking at the stars and he called me, then he went outside too. There’s something so... beautiful about knowing we were relatively far from each other, but we were on the phone and connected by looking at the exact same stars embroidered within the inky black sky.
That actually reminds me of another time with another friend. We sat on her roof after breaking out of her bedroom through the window. It was raining, or at least it had been, so it was pretty wet and cold out there. But we still climbed out and talked for the whole night. We talked about everything under the sun, from guys to body image, to the moon, to the light pollution from the city. I remember around 4 she started getting very emotional about someone she liked and I feel like I remember crying. It’s possible that she cried and the rain just ran down my face as I curled into myself. It did start raining while we were out there, but we stuck it out and neither of us got sick. We just stayed there and poured our souls out to the sleeping world while raindrops wet our hair and mixed with tears, running down our faces.
There was a time in sixth grade where I stayed over at another guy’s house, I remember we switched phones at the beginning of the night after another of our friends fell asleep. I wanted to vent and swear, but my parents used to check my phone, so I said I wanted to switch with him just Incase they saw my messages. We talked about love from the beginning of night until the end, when we came up with code names and an inside joke, drinking lemonade to stay awake. It was 4am and also the latest I’d ever stayed up before. Hah, if only sixth grade me knew that 4am would soon become an easy feat, and that falling asleep was the real trick.
Now that I think about it, the stories that I’ve just grazed over were all created from bouts of insomnia. You know, there are certain things that one can find out about another person when they stay up late together. There’s really not another time when the world seems so at peace where you are, so that you feel you can let all of your emotions out. You feel like you could turn into a madman at any moment, but it doesn’t quite matter because no one else is awake to see it happen.
Ever since we’ve become friends I’ve been secretly disappointed that you always go to bed so early. Then again, maybe I should be grateful, because you’re always well-rested and definitely seem to be healthier than myself. But I guess I want to be selfish and sad that you’ll never talk to me at 2am, when we’re both a little less reserved. I wish we hung out at your apartment that late and just talked, whether it be out in the rain or to each other from the other’s phone. I wish I could call you at 4 when my insomnia hits hard, and spend more time talking to you than writing letters that you’ll never read. Though not very many wishes are granted like this, huh? It’s good for you, and it’s a healthy habit to have, going to bed on time. I just. I couldn’t fall asleep even if I really wanted to, there’s no escape, just me, myself, and the stars simmering in the sky.
It would be nicer if you were with me, hugging me like in my dreams that grace me every-so-often.
With more love than is probably okay in a platonic friendship,
Park Jaehyung, or Jae for those shorter than me :)