I sleep downstairs now.
That sentence still feels strange to write.
Like a temporary detail that’s lasted too long.
I remember lying on my old bed. I remember the ceiling. The white noise of the fan. I remember the night moving forward without me ever really leaving it.
Sleep used to arrive without effort. Now it feels like something that happens elsewhere.
The house goes quiet above me. Footsteps fade. Doors close.
Down here, everything is still and somehow I’m not. I listen for movement upstairs.
Not because I expect anything to happen. Just because my body hasn’t learned that it doesn’t need to be listening anymore.
I don’t replay the whole story. Only the unfinished parts. The conversations that stopped short. The things neither of us said because saying them felt too dangerous.
Sleeping separately changes the night.
I’ve written before about how insomnia isn’t just about sleep.
There’s no accidental touch. No shared breath. No small reassurances you don’t realize you rely on until they’re gone.
Just space. And time. And a lot of thinking you didn’t ask for.
Sometimes I drift for a few minutes. A shallow kind of sleep. The kind that disappears the moment I realize it’s happening.
Morning always comes. That part is dependable.
I get up. I shower. I show up.
Most days, I’m steady. Functional. Okay enough.
But there’s a quiet grief in realizing you don’t remember what it feels like to wake rested, to wake unguarded, to wake without immediately orienting yourself to loss.
I’m not asking for perfect sleep. I’m not even asking for answers.
I just want my body to remember that night isn’t something I have to endure alone.
So I lie here downstairs.
Breathing.
Listening.
Waiting for rest to recognize me again.