The Sunday Night Insomnia

It’s 11:58 PM on a Sunday and I’m already mad at myself.

Not mad at anyone else. Just me. Because I know the drill by now. I know what’s coming. Monday is 2 minutes away, my phone screen says 11:58, and my heart is already doing that thing where it beats a little too fast for sitting still in bed. Sunday night insomnia, baby. The weekly special no one asked for.

The worst part? I have nothing to do tomorrow. Like, genuinely nothing urgent. No meeting. No deadline. Just a regular Monday at a job I’ve been doing for three years. So why am I staring at the ceiling like I’m about to take the SATs again?

I rolled over and looked at my boyfriend. Out cold. Mouth slightly open. Breathing like a person who has zero regrets about the weekend they just had. I wanted to shake him. Not to be mean. Just to ask — how?? How do you just sleep on Sunday nights? What spell did you cast? Did you pay someone? Is there a podcast I don’t know about?

I closed my eyes. Counted backwards from 100. Got to 87 and then remembered that I forgot to text my mom back. Got to 71 and then remembered that I said “sounds good” to a Slack message at 6 PM but actually didn’t read it. Got to 54 and gave up.

Someone online once said “Sunday scaries” and people laughed. Made merch out of it. Etsy shops full of mugs that say “I survived another Sunday.” Cool. Cute. But nobody talks about the actual hours. The 1 AM to 4 AM stretch where you just lie there like a hostage in your own bed.

Let me paint the picture. It’s 1:15 AM. I’m in bed. Phone is on the nightstand face-down. I told myself I wasn’t going to scroll. I lasted 4 minutes. Opened Reddit. Read a thread titled “people who quit their jobs at 35, how did it go?” which is exactly what someone with my level of Sunday night insomnia should NOT be reading. Three hours later I had a mental plan to move to Portugal and open a bakery.

I don’t even like bread.

I put the phone down. Eyes closed. Deep breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth, blah blah blah. The kind of breathing you’re supposed to do. My therapist taught me this. $150 a session. She said “the breath is the anchor.” I love her. But the breath is not anchoring me right now. My thoughts are still spinning like laundry.

What if I just don’t go tomorrow? What if I email and say I’m sick? But I’m not sick. What if I fake sick? My nose isn’t even runny. I’d have to do the voice. The voice. I hate the voice. You know the voice. The one that sounds like you have a sock in your throat. I can’t pull it off. I sound like a teen boy going through puberty.

Okay okay okay. Let me try again. 1:48 AM. Phone face down. Breathing. Eyes closed. I think I’m doing it. I think I’m finally drifting. My body is getting heavy. My fingers are tingling. This is it. This is the moment. I’m going to sleep.

Then my cat decided that 1:52 AM was the perfect time to projectile vomit on my favorite rug.

I sat up. I just sat up. Stared at the puddle. Blacklight would probably show another decade of cat vomit on that rug honestly. I cleaned it up. Blotted it. Sprayed the enzyme cleaner. The one that says “eliminates odors permanently.” Liar. That stuff never works. My apartment has smelled faintly like Fancy Feast for ten years and I’m starting to think it’s just me now.

Back in bed. 2:14 AM. The ceiling fan is spinning. The light under the door from the hallway is making a stripe on my wall. I can hear my upstairs neighbor watching something loud. A car alarm goes off somewhere down the block. My right eye twitches. Both eyes twitch? No. Just one. The left one. The left one is the rebellious one. Always has been.

You know what I think it is? I think it’s not actually about Monday. Like, I know people say “oh it’s just the work week” and for some people maybe that’s true. But for me? I think it’s the end. Sunday is the end of the weekend. The end of no plans. The end of staying in pajamas until 2 PM. The end of “we’ll do it tomorrow.” Once Sunday is over, that’s it. Next weekend is a whole 5 days away and who knows what could happen in 5 days.

That’s the thing. You don’t know. Maybe nothing will happen. Maybe the next 5 days will be fine. Or maybe they’ll be terrible. Maybe you’ll bomb a presentation. Maybe your friend will cancel on you. Maybe you’ll get a parking ticket. Maybe you’ll get sick. Maybe everything will be the same and you’ll be fine and you’ll be bored. The uncertainty is the killer. Sunday night insomnia doesn’t care if you have a good job or a bad job. It shows up either way.

I used to think I was the only one. Then I started a group chat with three of my friends. Sunday night, 11 PM, we all hop on. We don’t even really talk anymore. We just send a single emoji. The eyeball one. Like, we’re watching. We’re all awake. We’re all in hell together. Sometimes someone sends a voice note of them just breathing heavily into the mic. It’s comforting. It’s weird. It’s whatever works.

My friend Jess told me she takes melatonin. I tried that. Made me groggy for the first 4 hours of Monday like I was moving through wet cement. My friend Mark does the “military sleep method” where you relax each part of your body one by one. I tried that. Got to my toes and forgot what comes next. Calves? Ankles? Heels? I don’t know. I got distracted by a memory of prom 2014 and that was it for me.

My friend Priya just gave up and started staying up until 4 AM on purpose. “Look,” she said, “if I’m going to be awake, I’m going to be awake doing something I enjoy.” Smart. I’d respect that if I wasn’t jealous. She watches Korean dramas until sunrise. She has the energy of a kindergarten teacher on Monday. I don’t get it. I want to get it. I tried one drama. Got lost. Too many cousins. Blood-related plotlines. I tapped out.

I think I’m getting closer though. 2:47 AM. The cat is back on the bed. Purring. Loud. So loud. Almost offensive. I close my eyes. The purring is rhythmic. Like a white noise machine. Maybe this is it. Maybe the cat is the anchor. The therapist said the breath was the anchor. The cat is the anchor. Whatever. I’m not arguing.

I’m drifting. I think I’m drifting. The purring is getting quieter. Or maybe I’m getting louder. My body is feeling heavy. The kind of heavy where you don’t want to move. Where you want to sink into the mattress like it’s a cloud. Like it’s a pile of laundry. Like it’s a Sunday afternoon.

Wait.

Is it Sunday afternoon?

I open one eye. Light. Sunlight. The window. Through the blinds. Oh no. Oh no no no. I check my phone. 7:14 AM. Monday. I did it. I slept. I actually slept. I have to be at work in 46 minutes. The shower. The clothes. The coffee. The bag. The keys. The bus.

I don’t even feel tired. That’s the weird part. I should feel tired. I usually feel like I got hit by a truck on Mondays. But right now? I feel kind of okay. Like the insomnia paid me back. Like it gave me a little gift for all those hours I spent staring at the ceiling.

I get up. I brush my teeth. I make coffee. I kiss my boyfriend on the head on the way out the door. He’s still asleep. Still breathing like a person with no regrets.

I hop on the subway. The 7:23 AM. The express. The one that doesn’t stop at every station. I stand near the door. I look at the people. They all look tired. They all look like they didn’t sleep. Some of them are definitely Sunday night insomnia veterans. You can spot them. They have the look. The slightly glazed eyes. The “I gave up on trying to look awake” energy. I’m one of them. I nod at one of them, a woman in a gray coat. She nods back. We don’t speak. We don’t need to.

My phone buzzes. Group chat. Jess sent the eyeball emoji. Mark sent the eyeball emoji. Priya sent the eyeball emoji. I send the eyeball emoji. The family is awake. The family is suffering. The family is making it.

I wonder if I’ll ever get over this. Maybe I will. Maybe Sunday night insomnia is just a phase. Maybe it’s a forever thing. Maybe at 40 I’ll sleep like a baby. Maybe at 50. Maybe at 70. Maybe in the nursing home. Maybe never. Honestly? I’ve made peace with it. I don’t love it. I don’t like it. But I know it’s coming. Every Sunday. Like a loyal friend. Like a bad habit. Like a thing that happens to me and not because of anything I did.

I get to work. I log in. I drink my coffee. I answer an email. I do the thing. I’m alive. I’m tired. I’m here.

Tonight I will sleep. Maybe. Hopefully. Probably not. But that’s Tuesday’s problem. Tonight, I’m just going to go home, eat some pasta, and pretend that Sunday doesn’t exist.

I know it does. I know it’s coming. But for now, I’m going to pet the cat and watch the fan spin.

I’ll let you know how it goes.