Sleepless Nights

When I am with you, we stay up all night.

When you’re not here, I can’t go to sleep.

-Rumi

Do you remember the time when you stayed up all night with someone? Or for someone? When was the last time you could not sleep because of love or longing?

I tried to tap into the feeling this poem describes. Does this kind of feeling only happen when we’re young? How come it has been so long for me since I felt like this?

I remembered a time when I stayed up all night for love. It was the end of my sixth grade. To celebrate the graduation, one of our classmates threw a slumber party. Her parents had graciously agreed to host us, and they left us in the house by ourselves for the night so that we could have fun without anyone overseeing us. 

Their house had two floors and a basement. The sleeping arrangements were divided according to how late people wanted to stay up. The ones who needed to go to bed early were on the top floor. Middle floor was for the ones who wanted to stay up late, and the basement was reserved for the ones who could stay up all night. We had brought our own sleeping bags, and the hosts had set mattresses on the floors for us. I chose the basement, of course. That’s where all the cool kids would go. And all the boys.

We were a music-oriented class with only six boys in our class. I had a crush on one of them, but the ratio of six boys to 28 girls meant that I wasn’t the only one liking this boy. In that basement, guys were a hot commodity since everyone tried to get as close to them as possible. I remember being quite far from the corner where everybody was crowding the boys, but after the night crazies finally calmed down and the lights were turned off, I got up, pretended to go to the bathroom, and on my way back grabbed my sleeping bag and squeezed myself next to the one I liked, partially pushing other girls out of my way. 

He noticed that I was next to him. And there in the darkness, I felt his hand take mine. My heart was pounding, and I was filled with such elation and happiness. He likes me too! 

I didn’t want to move, so as not to break the spell and make him take his hand away. I barely dared to breathe, even though our palms got sweaty, and I wasn’t in the most comfortable position. An awkward position didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered than to have his hand in mine. I wanted to stay in that feeling forever. I refused to close my eyes because I didn’t want to accidentally fall asleep and miss any of it. I wished that the night would never end. And when the breathing of the other kids around us got deeper and everyone else was asleep, he and I kept stirring. Just a little bit. Gently clearing our throat, sniffling our nose, or squeezing our hand, ever so sweetly indicating to each other that we were still awake. We didn’t use words but communicated in our secret way, saying: “I’m still awake. I’m still here, sharing this moment with you”. 

I stayed up until dawn’s light arrived to illuminate the room and the crowd started stirring. The night was fading away and we had to get up. We couldn’t keep on holding hands forever, although that’s all I wanted. That would have been enough for me. Just to be there, lying next to the boy I liked, holding his hand until eternity. But the morning came and the magic was over. Yet, magical it had been. And with the morning, our parents arrived to pick us up, one by one, and we all went on to our summer breaks. 

The coming Fall, I ended up in a different school and never saw the boy again. Not until some 8 years later when I bumped into him while already in college. I had thought of him occasionally during the years. Thinking of what could be if we rekindled our pre-teen love affair. But when I saw him now, I was left in bewilderment of why I had been so enamored with him in the past. I said hi, and we exchanged a few words, but there was no spark anymore. I had moved on, grown, and had other interests, and other loves on my mind. 

But that night in the basement came back to me when I was reading Rumi’s poem. What a gift it is to experience something so vast that it makes you forget all else. Being in the moment so deeply that you lose perception of any other reality beyond it. In those moments there are no other realities, and if there are, they don’t matter.  

Even when the memory of the person fades, and I probably would not recognize him anymore, I never forget how I felt. What a gift to have emotions that feel bigger than life, for I would have given my life, right there and then, just to feel that way always. Immersed in happiness. Feeling loved. Being and existing inside love. Inside this emotion of indescribable bliss. 

These are the moments in time that the poets talk about. These are the times when we are truly alive. 

Wishing you all lots of moments like this. Wishing you all many nights of staying up!