I woke up again and knew I wasn’t going back to sleep.

The alarm wasn’t even close to waking up. The cracked light through my drapes showed the indigo sky—a shade I’ve come to refer to as “you’re not sleeping tonight” blue. I looked at my phone but already knew what it would read before the screen turned on: 3am.

It was the third night in a row I’ve woken up at this time. In the past, options to tackle this insomnia were aplenty: I could go back to sleep after a drink of water. I could read and drift off. I could even play some video games until sleep lulled me back. But lately, my mind pulls the body along a joyride of thought. It starts and doesn’t stop. It has become loud and uncontrollable, like a child. In dead silence this time brings, my mind wakes before my body can at 3am.

3am. Historically, I’ve gotten along with this time.

One could say I’ve preferred the night in my life.

Despite the sun’s rays and the heightened sense of joy in the air that wafted like perfume, I was feeling gray. Over the year, COVID-19 made me uncertain about my future. In my life, like most people, the pandemic revealed certain aspects of life that weren’t previously apparent. Maybe for some it was relationship issues. Maybe it was cabin fever or job uncertainty.

In my case, my career path was no longer clear. I was increasingly aware of this fact as the days dragged on in isolation. Throw in the economic flux of the job market, a splash of consistent restlessness, and you have a cocktail of underlying anxiety.

Caught in a web of thought and analysis-paralysis, I often spent more time pondering the future than acknowledging the present day.