Oftentimes I begin to say something then stop because I am convinced no one heard the first part of the sentence. Usually it is a sentence I don't know how to end, so I end it with an "or" or a "but, you know..."And I don't bother finishing because I have a hard time accepting that everything I say out loud can be heard all the time.

This is how I feel about my relationships as well. I begin them, but can't think of what to do next or how it will end. I love on condition, on certainty, then trail off and pretend nothing was between me and the other person. I ask myself this question, how did this strange cycle begin. It began when I met Ryan at the Dreamland Star Sleep Center.

He was a chronic insomniac, and it impressed me that he knew what he was. I didn't know what I was. My sleep disorder didn't fall into one category, it was based on an uncontrollable fear.

This is what happened. I didn't have nightmares, but in the middle of the night I would wake up, panicked. This usually occurred at approximately 2 AM. I would wake, stricken with the fear that everyone else in the world was dead, and if I went back to sleep, I would die too. I never thought this way during the day, in fact I would leave notes on my bedside table to remind myself that this was impossible. In the morning, these notes were balled up in my front yard.

They admitted me into the facility just after Ryan. They thought my irrational 2 AM fear was the result of nightmares I couldn't remember I dreamt.

I loved Ryan instantly for being a chronic insomniac. He wore the same red hooded sweatshirt every time I saw him, and when I mentioned that I liked his sweatshirt, it felt intimate. As if I knew his entire wardrobe. I knew what he was wearing before I even saw him. Ryan was over six feet tall, but he was thin and his dark blue eyes seemed to carry a few inches farther, so he never seemed too distant. He thought we had the same kind of humor. He told me stories, and said things such as "you would have laughed so hard" or "listen, you're going to think this is hilarious." And he was usually right.

Ryan and I left the facility every morning at 7 AM and went to the McDonald's across the street to discuss our night and eat pancakes. Usually, he had laid awake with the wires attached to his head, thought about his life, and not slept for a moment. You aren't helping, he said. He envied me and my unconscious nightmares. He wanted to hear about them, but I could never remember, not even for him. Occasionally I would get visions I couldn't explain.

A red pair of high heels. An entire city without a single light shining in the dark. A swirling river where the highway should have been.

Did you go swimming?

Ryan didn't understand the terror, but he had a different kind of fear. He said he wondered whether it would ever end. If he would ever sleep again, or be awake for the rest of his life.

Isn't that what everyone wants? I said.

He said it would kill him before long.