Witching Hour (or, Fighting Off Demons at 3 am with a Box Cutter)
Between the hours of 3 - 4 am, I find myself awakened by nothing in particular. The room is silent. There is no sound outside. No loud car horns. No dogs barking.
I’m upset.
I wish it was something other than just me. Then I could stop it. Nothing is to blame. It feels like moments have passed since I closed my eyes. The moments of a long dreamless sleep last about 4 hours.
Between 3 - 4 am, with no reason in particular, I awake with a black churning sea in my mind and body.
It takes about one second for the ceiling fan above me to complete a rotation. The same amount of time for the clock on the wall to click to the next line; the same time for one heavy sigh; a question can form from a second: when will this end?
The witching hour was once used to describe the hours the line between the spiritual world and the physical world were thinnest. Demons, ghouls, spirits of the like would apparently emerge in the dead of night and terrify those awake. In physiological terms, it’s the break of REM sleep that can cause these feelings. In this state, the awakened individual experiences a state of disorientation, fear, and anxiousness. The second concept is more widely used nowadays, but there’s something fitting about the idea of ghouls and demons rising at 3 am — anxiety, embodied.
I write this essay during the witching hour.
It’s precisely 3:32 am. These past months I’ve occupied this expanse of night that the ghouls inhabit. I’ve developed what some would call insomnia, though I’m not sure if it’s the most extreme. The effects are visceral: heightened emotion, irritability, lack of focus; states of dread in the night have become the norm. The world is asleep while I wrestle with my mind. Sometimes I go back to sleep. Nights like this, it takes a few hours.
My being is confronted by these demons during this witching hour. My life, my past, myself — the night takes me apart to observe my core. My future: what is it? A turn of the fan, a concept grows. 5 years from now will I be happy? Or is chasing happiness like chasing a dragon? I peer forward into the time ahead of me. I can’t make out anything. It’s all the same: dark waves, stormy water.
I’m aware I can’t feel optimistic about my future because my present has become in flux. I feel untethered. Uncharted. But I don’t know if that’s a bad thing yet. The feeling is like a contradiction: an end and a beginning. I’m limitless with no bounds. But I'm limitless, with no bounds. I follow no course. I follow no course. Cue fanfare. Tragic piano?
Meditating can help. It can calm down the roar of anxiety — a box cutter against a behemoth. But it’s hard right now. I can feel the peak of it all pressing on me. This confusing new future in my head — a goon of an idea — whips around my room. There it is again. I can feel it trampling me. It buries the idea of who I’m supposed to be. Ideas of promise, potential — they're strewn aside in heaps. A part of me is gone. In the heaps. What does it all amount to, goon?
I try to center.
I’m stubborn and I tell myself I’m resilient. The goon can’t get away with this. But it does. It has been with me for years. The goon holds a mirror to me, a mirror of truth. I see myself, a desolate thing. Then I see everything else stretched out before me, this truth, and it’s unavoidable. The fear of being. The fear of regret. The manic energy to prevent unhappiness. Dot the i’s cross the t’s. Nothing will make me blue. Nothing will make me. Give me hope — the fan spins; give me love — the fan spins — give me change for the better. The goon laughs. Don’t let me become bitter and old.
At the peak of these anxieties, I lose myself. I dissolve into the ocean inside. The goon wins.
Then, after the peak, where I pick up the pieces of goon’s rubble, I see the other side. I see the crossroads of all decisions, and all are open. There are no missteps or wasted moments. Only lessons. I glimpse the beauty of change in the face of uncertainty. I glimpse the version of myself I’m becoming in the face of this flux.
This notion begins to emerge. An idea that reminds me that now is all there is. At the center of rational and despair, after the hysteric grind of overthinking twirls me down its depths with no real end, the conclusion is clear. The future doesn’t exist.
I may not be able to stop projecting visions of the future that mimic my current depressive grip. That’s okay. I will learn to weigh it less and less. Then one day the future won’t be heavy anymore. I will walk without that weight. Until then, I’ll remove it one day at a time.
Jonah Thedorff is a (somewhat) recent graduate from the University of California, Berkeley. His literary experience is composed of two self-published two books, winning a writing contest, and contributing to Vocal and Medium under the surname Equals. He enjoys writing about the arts, culture, and anything that peaks his fancy. In his free time, you can catch him re-watching a Studio Ghibli movie, running for a 5k, or running from a bear.