I don't know if I've mentioned before, but I'm self-diagnosed with chronic insomnia. Over the summer, sure, who doesn't stay up til 3 am and sleep in until 1 pm? No, for me it doesn't take 3 months. It could happen in a day. As I type, it's 5:25 in the morning on a weekday. I'm listening to the winds outside, they're pretty harsh. My house is over a hundred years old, and my room is considered the attic. So if the blow is big enough, I can feel it. And it's made me think of last year, around this time, well February, when I also was having trouble sleeping. For different reasons all together, but I'll get into that later. And I've realized that insomnia, it's part of me. It's something that I've been told needs to be changed, or medicated. And I've only just realized, I don't want it fixed. I like it. Every winter, since Freshman year, I've gone through some sort of mental breakdown over or near Christmas break. I don't know why. I've always hated the snow and winter, but I think it's only recently morphed into something my mom calls Seasonal Affective Disorder. Something about being really depressed in winter, I don't really know. Well last year, Sophomore year, was the worst I've ever had. I was someone else entirely, more isolated than usual, more sensitive, and completely destructive. I lashed out unnecessarily, screamed until blue in the face at anyone who came near me. Maybe I was just being 15. Well, 16 I guess. My birthday is in December, so what have you. Anyways, I had recently become obsessed with a band called Tokio Hotel. You've probably heard of them and are extremely annoyed with them. I knew of them since the 8th grade, but last year I heard their english records for the first time. And suddenly they were my anchor. They were my friends during that time, they were my oxygen. And I know I've heard fangirls use these terms with no mercy in about a billion other contexts. But I mean it, this band was my life. In February, their first american tour was announced. The nearest date was New York, which is about a 6 hour drive. I don't know why I thought my mom would take me, but I was sure she would. So sure that she knew how important these boys were to me, how close I've grown to them, that she would drop everything and take me on a whim. I tried to make it as convenient as possible, offering gas money, driving during daylight hours since I only had a permit. It was still a no. And that no, it made something in me snap. She was my only chance. I was 15, not able to hop in a car and drive myself. Or take a train, bus, plane. She was the light at the end of the dark tunnel I'd been holed in for the last 3 months, and all of a sudden, that beam of light was cut off. Completely blindsighted. At first, I was in disbelief, shock. No, she's said "no" a million other times. She never means it. I always get my way in the end. Surely, this time is no different. (Heed this warning, mothers who spoil their children.) But it was. It was that night in February when it sank in that this is the first time that she's put her foot down. And, ironically, the only time it truly mattered to me. "Mom, please buy me that dress." "No, it's too expensive." "Please, mom, please, I really want it, please please please." "Fine, go get it, just so you'll shut up." I could have lived without all those things she's given me in the past "just to shut me up". But this, this mattered. This was my life. And she cut the cord. I felt utterly and completely betrayed. It was a schoolnight. A Tuesday or Wednesday. Somewhere between 2 and 3 am. It was freezing outside. I took my ipod, no jacket, stuffed on my shoes, and left. Without a word. My ipod was on shuffle. The breeze hit me like a slap in the face. It wasn't snowing, but it was cold enough to make your hands sting with frostbite after you went back in. I didn't go back in. Not for another hour or two. I took a walk on the road. In winter, everything is pure. I may say that I hate winter and snow, but this moment I will remember for the rest of my life. I started walking down the road. There was no snow, but everything was hushed. Time stood still. The moon was a perfect silver, the sky with a few clouds smeared across the sky. Stretched so thin the stars were slightly visible through them. I remember Final Day by Tokio Hotel coming on my ipod. I remember stopping in the middle of the street during that song. I remember looking up at the sky and thinking that I was outside freezing my ass off to prove some point or other, some point of anarchy or rebellion. But I remember thinking that those reasons that I was out there right then, they didn't matter. My slate was wiped completely clean. The sky, it welcomed me home. Not to my house, there's a difference between a house and a home. I've never felt so alive than in that moment. I've never been so self-aware. Everything was perfect. The night was mine, I was the only one outside to savor it. To claim it as my own. It was my home. I'd never felt so safe, so at peace, so whole, so....home. It's the only word I can think of to even come close to what I'm trying to describe. You can spend your whole life with people you love, who've shared memories with you, who welcome and accept you. But that one moment, and you'll know it when you feel it, that one moment that you come home. It's irreplaceable.