Every time you slip quietly into the kitchen at 3 a.m. under the bed covers, the refrigerator is waiting for you. It knows everything: when you've been through a major stress, when you're lonely, when you're just bored in your seat. Once you open the door, you involuntarily start looking not just for food, but for comfort, for a familiar ritual, for validation that you are still alive and capable of experiencing pleasure, even if it's quiet and dark.

Half of our “nightly hugs” with a cold shelf aren't about hunger. It's a way of talking to ourselves without words, “I'm here,” “I'm sad,” “I want to forget.” Avocado toast, leftover pizza, a couple spoonfuls of honey, all become instruments of our emotions, like a quiet truce with ourselves before continuing the fight against insomnia or the worries of tomorrow.

The refrigerator doesn't judge. He is a silent witness to our escapes from the day's clutter and rules. He is your unconscious ally, the keeper of secrets where logic cannot fit. By morning, most often there is only an empty shelf and a tinge of slight fright, but sometimes - and a spark of pleasure: you are not a soulless machine, you are a living person with weaknesses.

Sometimes I think that the refrigerator looks like an inner self that doesn't need masks and conventions: it accepts you as you are, including all your unpredictable impulses. In a world where we are constantly being tested for productivity and social acceptance, this is rare.

Try replacing the habit with a short dialog with yourself next time: how do you really feel? Sometimes it's enough to write down in a notebook what you usually hide in your plate so that the fridge is no longer your only listener. But be honest: he knows the truth about you, even when you try to hide from yourself.