Not being able to sleep lends itself to a few perks. You end up having silence never offered when the sun is up.

I have always taken advantage of this beautiful silence, even though sometimes, it is a very loud and lonely silence. It is a time when my brain is fully alive with all the possibilities in the world (for better or for worse).

Yet another memory of my old apartment: the majority of the place was windows. Just walls of windows. I lived on the second floor, corner apartment, above a coffee shop. It was a fairly small town and this was one of those old, brick buildings in downtown on Main St. My bedroom made up the corner part, above the intersection. When I first moved in, it took me a few weeks to be able to relax enough to sleep. I’d signed the lease with this beautiful idea of my future, but ended up moving in with a broken soul that I didn’t realize was going to take me almost two decades to recover from. Yet, somehow, I finally managed. Now I just feel stupid. Yep. Don’t you worry. There is a theme.

When I finally started being able to fall asleep, I’d be startled awake by the ambulances going through that intersection, with their sirens bouncing off all of the surrounding buildings.

Eventually, that place became one of the few homes I have ever known.

My favorite times were at night. There were these huge streetlights that are no longer there. They had the black posts with the frosted white globes, filled with warm lights. They have since been replaced with LED nightmares if you ask me, but alas, no one did. So, moving on.

My entire apartment would be lit up with this magical, orange glow as I sat there trying to make sense of my life. I have yet to make any sense of my life, but I guess it keeps me thinking and writing so I’ll just go with it.

The best nights were the rainy ones. The windows started at the height of my bed and went all the way to the tall ceilings. Everything was painted white and I had given most of my furniture away because I couldn’t bear to bring it with me. None of my furniture matched, and I had band posters on the walls, with push pins.

Back to those rainy nights.

I would prop open one of the windows behind the head of my bed and just sit there. I’ll never forget the way the air smelled, the way all of the lights reflected off the wet pavement, and the glorious sound of the raindrops. Dare I say I have never found a place that made me feel more alive-yet trapped.

—I have huge regrets for not taking more photos in that apartment, but I found another one last year that reminded me of it. The photos below are from that one.—

If you have made it this far into my rambling, you are probably wondering where in the world am I going with this. Can’t say I blame you, but this all came about because the newest season of Emily in Paris is out and I decided to watch it, since I couldn’t sleep.

Seeing her apartment, and knowing the storyline of the show, made me think of good old Carrie Bradshaw and her apartment. Who doesn’t love the stairs and the call box? I did.

What do I have in common with these two girls? HA! Way too much. Then again, even though both of these characters and their storylines are fiction, they work so well because they are both a part of all of us.

I mean, for me, it started with the idiot, Ariel, when I was a kid. I mean, she gave up her voice for a man. Her dad told her it wasn’t the best of ideas…did she listen? Nope. But she sure went on an adventure, and I guess all’s well that ends well?

Then, you have Carrie. Come on…she had the option to be with Aiden? She got sucked into chasing Big.

Emily. Whew. Poor girl. Just. Poor girl.

The theme is that we are all hopeless romantics in a way (some more so than others–guilty), and that’s why these books, movies, and TV shows work. They give us this false reality as kids, and then we grow up traumatized because life is way more Ursula than Aiden and by the time we wrap our heads around that, we run right back to those same books, movies, and TV shows to find some sliver of hope again.

I’m not sure how I feel about it all just yet, but I guess I’m here for the ride.

I’ve reached the point where I adore all of these things again because instead of me smacking myself on the forehead for choices I have made (that people viewing from the outside probably saw being doomed just as easily as we can while watching these characters), I am grateful to have the memories of the places that kept me safe while I tried to find my way through.

This brave fiction is what helps so many of us get out of bed in the morning, or take a chance we may have otherwise been too scared to take. There’s just something about escaping our reality for a bit that gives us this immunity. It’s temporary, but it’s necessary.

Even if we can’t have the luck of those girls’ apartments in the city, or the opportunities they are given…

There’s just something about hope.

All of this makes me want to continue to write and make music. Who knows, maybe one day, my work will be what some other hopeless romantic will sit by the window and read or listen to while she is trying to figure herself out.

Maybe that’s how I can pass on hope?

~Alisha