The Uninvited Party Guests

I lie wide-eyed in the dark, praying for sleep that will never come. The soft hum of my fan echoes across the walls while the night bus horn pierces the 2 a.m. stillness. The room looks unchanged. A few pieces of clothing remain scattered across the floor, and half-eaten cookies stare back at me from my desk. My mess—usually causing no harm—suffocates me. Every paper that’s not lined at a perfect right angle, every water bottle with one sip left, makes my room feel crowded, like there’s no space for me to rest inside of it.

The air begins to feel heavier, as if the room itself is trying to breathe. To soothe my inevitable anxiety, I begin to count sheep. One sheep, two sheep, and onwards until the words devolve to mere sounds, making me question language in its entirety. 

I try a new strategy. I will my mind blank, but every thought finds a way to creep in. It begins with the ordinary stressors, nothing I can’t manage. Upcoming tasks, the essay I procrastinated, questions I suddenly need answers to. With every new fragmented mental image, the thoughts spiral. The friend I never texted back… am I a bad person? The call I promised to make… am I a disappointing daughter? I never feel more alone than at this haunting hour. My eyes trace the ceiling in the dark, envisioning tally marks of my life’s mistakes and regrets.

The longer I stay awake, the less the room feels like my own. It feels like a space that I’ve lost control over, like a slumber party I didn’t want to throw. The guest list sits with me in the dark, patiently waiting for their time in the light.

At first, they arrive quietly. The closed door becomes transparent, allowing the uninvited guests to make themselves at home. They enter through memories, not footsteps. Manifestations of my mind. 

The first guest sits criss-crossed at the foot of my bed. Even in the dark, I recognize her; when I move, she follows. Her hair is thicker than mine, her nail beds intact, but she carries the same blanket—Boppy. She’s wearing the pajamas I outgrew years ago, the ones I got on Christmas Eve. She speaks to me, her voice too pure, her eyes too full of innocence to see me at this hour. I fight back tears. 

She asks me what books I’m reading, what poems I’m writing. I tell her I’m too tired for those things now, that I’m busy with work and more important tasks. Still, her eyes light up when I mention Harvard. “You’re at the best school in the world? That’s so cool!” I yearn to tell her that it is, that she should be so excited, but the words don’t come. She doesn’t see it yet, that pride has turned into pressure. She tilts her head. “Why are you up so late if you’re tired?” I realize my excuse of exhaustion doesn’t make sense to a girl who falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow. I don’t want to scare her. She doesn’t need to know yet that in ten years’ time, insomnia will make her dread the witching hour—the hour when the mind stays loud long after the world has gone quiet.

The presence on my bed shifts, that version of me gone for good. I feel sturdy arms wrap around my back, holding the front of my stomach. I let myself melt into the familiarity, momentarily. The warmth, the steadiness, the feeling of being home. My body knows who my next guest is before my mind does. 

The ghost of a boy I once thought I’d grow old with begins to speak. He says something about right person, wrong time, but I don’t believe in that. Time is an inescapable construct; we are meant to adapt to it. I let him talk anyway, because I’m so tired of fighting. My voice would not reach him even if I tried. When he’s finished, the smell of his cologne lingers on my bed sheets. The scent of empty promises and begging for love lures me toward my next guest. 

Forced to continue my night as the puppeteered host of memories past, I spot long hair waterfalling down my desk chair. Her legs are crossed, shoulders back, as she rhythmically types away as if her keyboard were a piano. I recognize her, but her name escapes me. 

“You’re behind,” she says. Not in a cruel way, but matter-of-fact. It stings all the same. She offers to help with my p-set, even to clean my room. Of course, she’s nice too, I think. I peer past her toned back to the glowing screen. She switches between her color-coded Google Calendar and an assignment due in two weeks. 

I resent her for how composed she is, how organized. I loathe her 4.0 GPA and thriving social life. I despise that her stomach doesn’t hurt and her head doesn’t pound. I envy her for the same reasons. Maybe she isn’t the girl I pass in the dining hall or who I spot across the lecture hall. Maybe she’s me—or rather, who I want to be. The seemingly impossible version of myself that would finally feel content. I want to tell her I’m doing enough, but the words wouldn’t sound convincing. I want to say that I have it all together, but the late-night spiral proves otherwise. The world is too quiet to distract me from myself. 

I continue sitting in silence, waiting for another guest to make their presence known, but no one does. The hum of my fan returns to my consciousness. Light creeps through the blinds. The air still feels crowded, but it feels different now. Everyone has left, or maybe was never here at all. The child, the boy, the girl at the desk, they did not show up uninvited. I created them—figments of my imagination, playing dress-up in the dark. 

It seems that the last guest is a mere underlying presence. It doesn’t take bodily form, but has a persona just as large. The future—a weight that hovers out of sight, still pressing down on me. It was always there, whispering what-ifs. The questions start small, but they never stop there. Will I find rest? Will I ever be enough for someone? Will I be happy? 

The party quiets, the guests dissolve into the air. I will clean up the mess they made in the morning. For now, I watch as sunlight creeps in under my blinds, washing away the lingering thoughts on the walls. I breathe in the calm, and for the first time in hours, I am by myself. 

When the morning comes, I hold the truths the uninvited left within me. Maybe I will sleep tomorrow. 

Paige Cornelius ’28 (paigecornelius@college.harvard.edu) is not this bad of an insomniac.