We are friends now, at last.  I’d say I’ve known them all my life, but it isn’t true, really.  I’ve identified them by sight, certainly, for as long as I can remember, but I refused to acknowledge them for years.  I’d shut my eyes and turn my head away, enduring their visitation in stony, jaw-set silence; or rage in hot tears at their intrusion.

But eventually anger runs out, and I realized that if we are going to meet regularly — and we undoubtedly are — it might as well be on amicable terms.  I gave up trying to avoid them, stopped resisting their company.

Now we sit together in a companionable silence most days.  They offer me a space for reflection and contemplation, and a first sounding board for ideas I’m not yet ready to share with anyone else.  I’ve come to truly value my time with four and five.

‘The Confession of a Lifelong Insomniac, Rebekah Choat, composed between 5:17 and 5:54 a.m., November 10, 2012’