The Sunday Night Insomnia

It’s 11:48 PM on a Sunday and I’m staring at the ceiling fan spinning its slow little circles above my head. Counting rotations. Each one takes about two seconds, so I figure if I count to 60 I might be done with one rotation per breath cycle and fall asleep like a math genius.

I don’t fall asleep like a math genius.

My phone screen glows 11:49, then 11:50, then 11:51, and somewhere between those minutes my chest starts doing that thing. You know the thing. Tight. Not the “I ran too fast” tight, more the “something’s coming and I can’t stop it” tight. The sunday night insomnia hits different when you’ve already had two cups of coffee at 4 PM because your cousin dragged you to some birthday thing in Bushwick.

I shouldn’t have had that second cup.

But also I shouldn’t have scrolled through Slack for 20 minutes before bed because someone named Marcus replied-all’d me about a quarterly report and my brain immediately went “cool so tomorrow you’re going to have to think about that quarterly report and probably also respond to Marcus and definitely also somehow make the bar chart less ugly.”

Wasn’t even my bar chart.

That bar chart belongs to Priya, who is on PTO this week, which means I’m going to be the one explaining it in the 10 AM standup tomorrow. With my face. On Zoom. To a director whose name I always forget and have to look up before every single call.

Mom texted me at 9 PM asking if I ate dinner. I told her yes. I ate half a granola bar and two slices of American cheese at room temperature.

She texted back, “Good, now go to bed early, you have work tomorrow.”

Mom, if I could go to bed early, I would.

I love my mom.

But mom doesn’t get that the problem isn’t the going to bed. The problem is the thing between 11 PM and 1 AM where my head turns into one of those TVs in a 24-hour diner, cycling through every channel at once. Did I lock the door. Did I reply to that email from my landlord about the broken radiator. Do I actually want to be a product manager. Did I say something weird to that woman at the bar on Friday. Does she think I’m weird. Should I text her. Is texting her after 10 days too late. Is 11 days too late. Should I have texted earlier. Why am I still awake thinking about this.

Did I lock the door.

You ever lay in bed and your pillow is somehow both too soft and too hard at the same time? Like it’s mocking you. Like the pillow is on its little pillow phone calling its pillow friends saying “yeah he’s here again, we got another one, just keep being uncomfortable in waves.”

I flipped it over to the cool side.

Cool side lasted maybe four minutes.

My cat, Mango, is asleep at the foot of the bed. Mango doesn’t have a job. Mango doesn’t have a Monday. Mango doesn’t have a quarterly report or a director whose name she has to look up. Mango just eats, sleeps, and at 6 AM will scream in my face for wet food like a tiny orange landlord.

I’m jealous of my cat.

That is a sentence I never thought I’d write. But here we are. 12:14 AM on a Monday morning, jealous of a 9-pound tabby who thinks 6 AM is a reasonable breakfast hour.

Okay here’s the part that’s embarrassing.

I’ve tried everything. Melatonin gummies that tasted like chalky strawberries. The 4-7-8 breathing thing where you breathe in for 4 seconds, hold for 7, breathe out for 8, and by the third round you’re so focused on the math that you’ve forgotten to breathe and now you’re lightheaded. White noise apps. Brown noise apps. Pink noise apps. The one that plays “campfire by the lake” — there is no lake, Mango, why would I fall asleep to a lake.

Weighted blanket. Got it off Amazon for $89, the brand Gravity, the kind that makes you feel like a burrito. It’s actually solid. I used to wake up at 4 AM feeling cold and now I wake up at 4 AM feeling trapped in 15 pounds of fabric and somehow that’s better? I don’t make the rules.

I also got this weird thing called a sunrise alarm clock. Costs like $40. It’s supposed to wake you up gradually with light that mimics the sun rising. Cool concept, terrible execution in my apartment because the light also wakes up Mango, who then screams for wet food an hour earlier than planned.

Counterpoint though: it does make getting out of bed feel slightly less like being executed.

But that’s a morning problem. Tonight is the night problem.

I read somewhere — actually no, I don’t know where I read this, maybe Instagram, maybe a TikTok, maybe I made it up — that sunday night insomnia is just anticipatory anxiety. That your body knows the weekend is ending. That the dread isn’t about the work, it’s about the transition from “you” to “you at work,” and your body treats that like a small death every single week.

That’s grim. But also kind of explains why I feel like I’m grieving on Sunday nights for a life I never actually had, like I missed some alternate timeline where Sunday went differently.

What would alternate timeline Sunday look like? Probably I’d be in a cabin. There’d be no Slack. No Marcus. The cat would be there but somehow quiet. I’d have a fireplace going. I’d read a real book made of paper. I’d fall asleep at 10 PM like a grandma.

I live in a 480-square-foot studio in Astoria.

There is no fireplace.

Mango just farted.

Okay so here’s what I actually do on Sunday nights now that I think about it, the real routine, the one I don’t admit to anyone:

Around 8 PM I start pretending the weekend is longer than it is. Like if I don’t check the calendar, Monday never has to show up. I leave the dishes. I don’t fold laundry. I watch one more episode of whatever show I’m binging. Then another. Then “just one more” until I’m four episodes deep and it’s 11:30 and the dread drops.

The dread is a physical thing. It’s like my chest has a small animal trapped in it and the small animal is panicking. Stomach goes tight. Hands feel weird, slightly damp but not sweaty enough to call it sweat, more like my skin is embarrassed. I clench my jaw without realizing and wake up the next day with a headache that lives behind my right eye.

I told my therapist about this. Her name is Wendy. She has a plant on her desk that’s fake and I think it’s fake and she knows I think it’s fake but we don’t talk about it.

Wendy says I should try “cognitive defusion.” That’s when you imagine your thoughts as passing trains. You watch them go by. You don’t get on the train.

The problem is my trains are running at full speed and the station is on fire.

She also suggested I put my phone in another room at 9 PM. I tried it. I lasted three nights. The first night I felt free. The second night I felt bored. The third night I got up at 9:47 PM because “what if my sister texted” and then I didn’t even look at the phone, I just held it for a minute, and put it back.

The fourth night I didn’t try.

Wendy charged me $175 for that session, out of pocket, because my insurance covers exactly zero therapy sessions until I’ve met my $2,400 deductible, which is a whole other kind of insomnia I won’t get into.

It is now 1:22 AM. Mango is awake. Mango is staring at me. Mango knows.

I close my eyes.

I open my eyes.

I close my eyes again.

I see Marcus’s reply-all message projected onto the back of my eyelids. The bar chart is there. The director whose name I always forget is there. My landlord’s email about the radiator is there. The woman from the bar, who I have not texted in 11 days, is there. Mom is there, asking if I ate dinner.

I ate half a granola bar, mom.

I pull the weighted blanket up to my chin. $89 of Gravity blanket crushing me gently. The cool side of the pillow is gone, replaced by whatever temperature my head runs at, which feels like a small engine.

I try the 4-7-8 breathing.

In for 4. Hold for 7. Out for 8.

I get to out for 8 and forget what number I’m on.

I try again.

Same thing.

I think about every single person I know who seems to fall asleep fine. My friend Alex texts me goodnight at 10:30 PM and is unconscious by 10:45. How. How does Alex do it. Does Alex have a secret. Does Alex take something. Should I ask Alex. That would be weird. Don’t ask Alex about sleep meds.

2:04 AM.

My phone lights up. A Slack notification. From Marcus. At 2 AM. Marcus, why.

The notification is about the quarterly report. He attached a new version. The bar chart is still ugly, Priya. I mean Marcus sent it but Priya made it.

I’m going to respond in the morning.

I’m not going to respond in the morning.

I’m going to lie here and think about how I’m going to respond in the morning.

3:15 AM.

I fall asleep somehow. I don’t know when. I just know Mango is kneading the weighted blanket into a shape that will never recover, and there’s light starting to creep in through the blinds, and my alarm is in 2 hours, and the sunday night insomnia has officially won again, and I am already tired in a way that Monday morning won’t fix.

I will wake up tired. I will drink too much coffee. I will sit in the standup. I will look up the director’s name. I will explain Priya’s bar chart. I will survive Monday. I will come home. I will not fold laundry. I will eat something questionable. I will look at my phone. I will pretend the weekend is longer than it is. I will watch one more episode.

And then next Sunday, at 11:48 PM, I will stare at the ceiling fan again.

And Mango will sleep through all of it.

[“Sunday Insomnia”, “Sleep Anxiety”, “Weekend Dread”, “Bedtime Routine”, “Mental Health”]