I used to think that insomnia was when you couldn't sleep. It turned out to be much more interesting. It's when you lie in the dark, staring at the ceiling, and replaying conversations from three years ago in your head. And with faces, dialogues, and mental remarks you didn't say back then 🌙🌸.

I tried everything. Warm milk didn't help. I lost count of sheep after two hundred and started counting the mistakes in my life. Meditation apps, the voice was so calming that I'd fall asleep halfway through, then wake up at three in the morning refreshed, as if I'd slept well.

The strangest discovery happened by accident. One day, I simply stopped struggling. I lay there and gave myself permission not to sleep. Not to think about how hard the next day would be. Not to count the hours until the alarm. Just to lie there and listen to the occasional cars drive by outside the window.

And you know what? I fell asleep. Not that night, of course, but after a week of this "permission," sleep began to return on its own. It turned out that the harder I tried to fall asleep, the less I could. And when I stopped trying, everything got better 🌸.

Now I sleep. Not always perfectly, but I sleep. And I no longer have nightly confrontations with the past. Well, almost ☁️.