It’s 1 a.m.
And ZzzQuil doesn’t work anymore.

Not because I’m not tired, but because this isn’t the kind of tired that medicine can fix. It’s the kind that buries itself deep in the bones—quiet, heavy, and always lingering. The kind that keeps you floating between memories and regrets long after the rest of the world has gone to sleep.

Most nights, that’s when the dreams come. And they always take me back to the same place.

I always dream of our old house.

Not because I miss it. Not because it was perfect.
But because some part of me never left.

In the dream, I float through its rooms—not walking, not rushing—just drifting.
Like a ghost.
Not scary. Not tragic.
Just quiet.
Searching.

I move through doorways that no longer exist, past hallways that live only in memory. I trace the outline of rooms that held more than furniture—they held voices, laughter, tension, warmth. They held us. And now, they hold me.

I haunt it.

Even though it’s gone.

The old house has been sold, leveled, replaced with something sleeker and colder—something that might photograph better, but doesn’t know our stories. It has better plumbing, fewer cracks, and no idea what it means to carry a childhood in its walls.

But still—I stay.

I stay because that house was more than wood and tile. It was the last place I remembered feeling whole. Before the world asked me to break into smaller, more acceptable pieces. Before I learned how to silence my own pain. Before pretending became the only way to be allowed in the room.

Somewhere along the way, I lost myself.
And no one seemed to care.

They noticed the changes. They noticed the silence.
But they never asked.
Never leaned in.
Just watched from a distance and moved on.

I wish they had done more.
I wish I had done less.

Less explaining.
Less shrinking.
Less holding everything together just so no one else had to feel uncomfortable.

Because now—I’m exhausted from living.

And when even ZzzQuil can’t put you to sleep, it’s not just insomnia. It’s something deeper. A voice in your mind that whispers, “We’re not done hurting yet.”

This isn’t the kind of exhaustion you talk about.
It’s the kind you carry quietly while still showing up.
Still working.
Still smiling.
Still breaking in places no one sees.

And here’s what most people won’t admit:

It’s not always the prodigal son’s fault.

Sometimes he left because he wasn’t welcome.
Sometimes he didn’t return because no one noticed he was gone.
Sometimes the road away was quieter than the noise he grew up in.

The house is gone now. No one lives there. Not really.

But I do.

In the dreams.
In the early morning hours when sleep forgets me.
I float through the same rooms, again and again, watching old versions of myself just being me—unfiltered, unafraid, untouched by disappointment.

And in those dreams, I see them all.

The people I loved.
The ones who once filled the kitchen with noise and the hallway with footsteps.
The ones who laughed loudly and argued softly and believed in tomorrow.

I see us—when we were still together.
When we still believed we would always be.

But one by one, they left.

Not always in anger.
Sometimes in silence.
Sometimes just… life.

And I stayed.

Not because I wanted to.
But because part of me never learned how to leave.

Now I watch them like a ghost watches the living.
With envy.
With distance.
With a kind of longing that has no language.

And every time, just before daybreak, I hope to disappear.
To dissolve with the light and wake up lighter.

But I don’t.

Because grief doesn’t keep time.

And maybe… maybe this isn’t about the house at all.
Maybe it’s about me.
About the version of me I left behind.
The one I still float toward in every dream.

Maybe I just want to go home—
to the person I was
before everything started hurting.

The old house is gone.
But I’m still there.

Still floating.
Still hoping.
Still haunting what used to be mine.

And someday—
I’ll find my rest.