a treatise on midnights

a lot of things can happen at midnights.

a recurring theme of my life—or, at least, the end of my young adolescence, the years when I was working too hard, staying out too late, and flying by the seat of my pants and the last twenty dollars in my bank account saved for booze after paying for rent and my monthly mta card—was late nights.

nights didn’t end at midnight. they started then.

I’d have shifts where I’d clock out at midnight, punching a code into an iPad, brushing past the faint thumping of a curated mix of something vaguely clubby but inviting, meant to make restaurant guests linger over expensive cuts of steak, and I’d solider out through the side entrance, and onto the streets of new york.

sometimes, I’d meet the line cooks and servers for drinks; the haunts that pop up and go away and don’t exist anymore, the ones that are tucked away down corners and up the stairwells in between streets and only there if you look for them, only available to the people that haunt new york when the time on the clock is a single digit and the night is pitch black. start off with vodka sodas, eight dollars and reliably strong, before switching to tequila shots, dancing in bars where nobody else was dancing, and making friends with bartenders just so I could forget their names by the time I woke up.

those midnights were about forgetting the burn in my gut telling me this wasn’t enough, couldn’t be enough, and forcing it aside, trying to find a place where I belonged.

often, I’d go for dinner at a korean place in k-town with one of my best friends, linger over a shared dish of spicy pork, eating Chloe’s fish when she didn’t want it. we’d talk about our weeks, complain about our sore feet, we’d wonder if the world was coming to an end after all. we’d talk about god, we’d talk about religion, we’d talk about boys. when the check came, we’d split it down the middle, fair’s fair, and uber home.

those midnights were better—everything seems better with the perspective a full belly and a best friend provides. someone who laughs at my quips and makes her own and tells me I’m not crazy, she thinks that, too.

there were nights when the weather was nice—though, it takes a lot for me to think it’s bad—and I’d forgo the train, knowing the 1 would arrive at the 23rd station in twenty minutes. in that time, I’d have swung by taco bell, got the dollar menu quesadilla and nacho fries, and make the trek home.

in those days, I lived in the west village and in those days it was okay for me to be walking home from the flatiron area to the far corners of the west village, where it edged along the water, jersey on the other side, in the middle of the night. I’d put on music and take the meandering way home, sometimes doubling my walk, just because I liked to pay a visit to all my favorite brownstones, inspect the way the leaves drooped over the windows from one evening to another, liked to see what people put out for the garbage men to take away come morning. lights were on and people were rarely home but I’d run into the odd man out, walking the dog, and because it was then, I’d pet the dogs and make pleasant meaningless chatter while I did.

those midnights were about me. I answered to no one, I lived by my own rules, if I wanted to delay getting home by forty minutes just to touch the plaque that marked Bob Dylan’s home with my right hand and leave it a kiss, I could. If it wanted to float down the odd streets of the west village in the dark like a friendly ghost who had a greasy bag of taco bell tucked under her arm, I could. If I wanted to take the most convoluted path back to my apartment, if only to prove that I live here, that I know the way, you could place me in any spot blindfolded and I’d feel my way out because each nook and cranny and crevice was now burned into my skin and bones—I’d do it. those midnights were about belonging.

some nights, odd nights, I’d be on a bus or a train home; often with friends, rarely alone. but it’s funny how, when your demons take root inside your soul, you can feel so fucking alone, even when you and your friends are pressed six deep on a C train headed uptown. he loves me not becomes the echo and the sparkly makeup and sharp sharp contour and hemlines that inched higher became my armor. there were days—glorious, blissful, blistering, backbreaking days—that I worked myself to the bone, threw myself into books, and juggled too many things too quickly. but I didn’t give myself a respite at night, I couldn’t; I practiced being the shiniest person in the room, turned the shitty bottom shelf vodka into a drinking game so everyone could choke it down, always had another place to go when the bouncer didn’t let us in, always made friends at the parties in williamsburg where I was invited but didn’t know a single soul, leaving the night with a steady ___ now follows you on the little apps on my phone. I’d prance and preen around the party like I was a chandelier, like I was a mirrorball, because it’s better to be surrounded by fun at all times, with a friendly haze of weed and the high of the night rather than think about the arms you won’t ever feel around you again or how you’re work work working towards something it feels like you’re never gonna get.

and then there were nights where I chased the bitter taste of the emptiness with the reminder that I was still here, like a wedge of lime shoved in my mouth, tangling with salt, keeping the liquor down. I’d come home, halal in hand, stumble into my room far past midnight, put on an old record, and dance in my underwear, the rug with the old pattern I’d paid far too much for becoming the dance floor I’d went out that night searching for but didn’t find. I let myself cry over boys, I let myself chase a feeling down a flight of stairs and a warm embrace that was fun for just right now, I let myself lope my arms through my friends and toast a city that never slept, vowing to stay awake with it, and came home well past midnight, a little light still burning in my heart.

you can only stay down for as long as it takes until the next song comes on the speakers, until the shift you wake up bleary eyed for, until the next morning when you sniff the underwear to make sure it’s clean, put on your old jeans and a nice coat, chug a gatorade and keep going. I was only ever down long enough to baby my wounds, letting my pieces fall apart prettily—always prettily—so I could stitch them back together, shining, exciting, and faking being new—everybody wants new, nobody wants old. I was only down long enough to write a song on my guitar at 3 am and complain to the ceilings when I couldn’t sleep, only down long enough to scream my cries into a pillow until my throat was hoarse and the words didn’t make sense anymore and the morning pushed away midnight and I had hot tea in my hand and professors to impress and a world to conquer and a city to show that I was the mastermind of it all.

and I’d keep going and going, burning through the daylight until it faded away into the inky black that felt like home and felt like a prison; until I hit midnight.