Sometimes, I love the middle of the night, when the rest of the world’s gone to sleep and the air’s quiet.

I should be sleeping.

I used to have a lot of sleepless nights, most of them because I had something weighing on my mind, keeping me from settling down enough to rest until I’d exhausted my reserves. I still have them occasionally; I don’t think anyone ever gets by without the experience of long, lonely difficult nights at least once in a while.

The other night I told a friend of mine about my experience in Maui, and the long dark night of the soul I endured all the way from college until a few months after I moved to Hawaii in the summer of 2006. I told him about losing everything I had, everything I thought was me, and then waking up one day and realizing — after all of that, after I’d thought I’d completely lost myself — I woke up and I was still there. I told him that, since then, I’ve lived a life relatively free of fear.

I knew when I moved to Maui that I would likely end up having a breakdown of some sort, and I also knew that if I had stayed in Boston I would have kept on going the same way I had before. I would’ve been fine, though not terribly happy.

I still have occasional sleepless nights. I still sometimes get stressed when I can’t see a way to fix a difficult situation. But the sort of fear that used to grip me – a paralyzing mind-frenzied terror, a futile effort to control difficult situations – doesn’t come to visit any more.

I told a friend tonight that she makes me want to write, and how that’s such a huge gift to me. There are two gifts anyone can offer me: the greatest of all is understanding me, and second only to that is inspiring me.

I also told her her world will work out. I promised her. I can’t explain exactly how I know, except maybe I understand a little of how moods and fears can have us cold and alone in middle of the dark and quiet night. Alone with ourselves, kept company only by an endless litany of thoughts & scenarios, filling our waking moments with tasks and projects just to pass the time.

Sometimes, I love the middle of the night, when the rest of the world’s gone to sleep and the air’s quiet. I used to walk along Newbury Street in Boston at 3am when I worked the overnight shift; totally alone, flanked by the solid stone of all those empty, silent buildings. The only sounds, my footsteps on the concrete and the distant hum of cabs shuttling the last stragglers home to bed. Without the electric din of day filling my eyes and ears, I felt peaceful, peaceful knowing that we all have a chance to live and a chance to rest.

So that’s often when I write – the phone finally silent, the stream of emails slowed, nobody awake to ask or expect anything of me, and even I have duties to fulfill, most can’t be accomplished until the world gets back to work the next day.

When it comes to the unexplainable, I’m a skeptic until my own experience convinces me otherwise. I don’t know if I believe in predicting the future or special senses, but I do believe in the power of intuition; it’s a sense that’s guided me well throughout my life, helped me thrive whenever I’ve listened to what I’m feeling in my gut.

I have a few scars, and almost all of them came from not listening to my intuition. But lately, even when I’ve been worried about money or food or love, something’s been there to let me know it’s okay to sleep, okay to rest.

And the world keeps working out after all, with and without my help. Maybe that’s luck or coincidence, or maybe I’m more on top of my game than I give myself credit for. Either way, I’m grateful.

And now, I lay me down to sleep.