Let It Begin With Sleep
(Lights up.)
(I sit at the desk. Test papers, grade sheets, and a red pen are scattered across it. My phone is lit up; the time reads 4:37 AM.
Me: The papers still aren’t finished. The grades still haven’t been submitted.
(Pause.)
The Other Me: (from the dark) But your heart went on summer break a long time ago.
Me: ...Who’s there?
The Other Me: You hear me every day. It’s just that today, you don’t want to pretend you can’t anymore.
Me: I’m just exhausted.
The Other Me: You’re not exhausted. You’re falling apart.
You go to sleep at dawn. You go to sleep after sunrise. You wake up in the afternoon.
And the first thing you do when you wake up isn’t work. It’s figuring out how to forgive the version of yourself you are today.
Me: I worked today.
The Other Me: A meeting?
Me: A meeting is still work. I went to one this afternoon.
The Other Me: Mm. Your body showed up.
Me: That’s still true.
The Other Me: Then what about the other truth?
Me: ...What?
The Other Me: You sit in meetings while being sleepless. You discuss curriculum while having no idea how to live. You say students need understanding while dragging your own life out until dawn.
Me: It’s not like I’m not dealing with it.
The Other Me: Then what are you doing right now?
Me: ...I’m sorting things out.
The Other Me: You’re procrastinating.
Me: Everyone wants to rest occasionally.
The Other Me: This isn’t rest. This is disorder.
You know perfectly well you’re falling, and you’re still sitting here watching it happen.
(I stand up and shove the chair back irritably.)
Me: Are you done? It’s not like I’ve done nothing. I went to the meeting, I replied to messages, and I’ve been pushing things forward. I haven’t collapsed.
The Other Me: You’re just very good at holding yourself together.
Me: What’s wrong with that?
The Other Me: Nothing.
It’s just pathetic.
(Pause.)
(I glare into the dark.)
Me: What exactly are you trying to say?
The Other Me: I’m saying the way you are right now isn’t just indulgence.
You’re running away.
(Blackout.)
(Lights up again. Cold white light. The room is quiet in a way that feels cold.
(The Other Me steps out of the darkness, like someone from a mirror.)
Me: Running from what?
The Other Me: From what you did. From the emotions you never dealt with. From the fact that you know you have a problem and still sum it up with “My sleep schedule’s been off lately".
Me: I know I have a problem.
The Other Me: Knowing isn’t the same as facing it.
Me: Then what do you want me to do? Kneel here every day and confess?
The Other Me: It’s not that you’ve never confessed. You’re just addicted to it.
Me: ...What does that mean?
The Other Me: You’re excellent at blaming yourself.
For your awful sleep schedule. For your insomnia. For not being gentle enough. For ruining everything.
You keep blaming yourself. Over and over. Until in the end, you don’t have to change at all.
Me: I’m not like that.
The Other Me: No?
Then tell me: why do you still live like you’re serving a life sentence?
Me: Because I was wrong.
The Other Me: Not enough. Go deeper.
Me: Because... I hurt her.
The Other Me: Go deeper.
Me: I don’t know. I really don’t know.
The Other Me: Yes, you do.
(Pause.)
Me: ...Because I don’t know how to go on living with this.
The Other Me: No. It’s because you refuse to let go of the part of you that still wants to keep its dignity.
(I fall silent.)
The Other Me: What hurts you most isn’t just that you hurt her.
What hurts you most is this—in her story, you became the kind of person you despise most.
Me: ...
The Other Me: Someone disloyal. Someone weak. Someone who talked about being mature, rational, and measured—and still ruined the relationship.
Me: Stop.
(I freeze.)
The Other Me: It’s not that you don’t know. It’s that you’re afraid to be honest.
Me: I know I was wrong!
The Other Me: And yet you still keep watching her.
Me: I’m not—
The Other Me: You are. You watch how she lives. You watch how she changes. You watch to see if she’s already okay. And then you decide whether you’re allowed to hate yourself a little less today.
Me: I just want to know if she’s doing okay.
The Other Me: You want to know whether you still have the right to move on.
(Long pause.)
Me: ...Maybe.
The Other Me: You handed the power to forgive yourself to someone who stopped needing you a long time ago.
Me: She matters to me.
The Other Me: So what? She’s already learned how to love herself. And you still want to use her as an excuse to prove your remorse, your feelings, and your inability to let go?
Me: Why do you have to make me sound so awful?
The Other Me: Because you’ve spent so long making yourself sound noble.
You think pain is responsibility. You think guilt is change. You think being unhappy means you must be remorseful.
Me: Isn’t it?
The Other Me: No. It just means you’re rotting where you stand.
(I slam my fist on the desk.)
Me: Then what do you want me to do? Forget? Turn the page? Live as if none of this ever happened?
The Other Me: I never told you to forget.
I’m telling you to stop treating “suffering” as "atonement".
(Silence.)
Me: ...You have no idea how awful this feels.
The Other Me: I do.
Because I am you.
(Pause.)
The Other Me: Didn’t you watch that Buddhist video tonight?
Me: ...
The Other Me: What did it say?
Me: Three permissions.
The Other Me: Louder.
Me: Allow what happened to happen.
The Other Me: And?
Me: Allow regret.
The Other Me: And?
Me: Allow imperfection.
The Other Me: And yet you won’t give yourself a single one of them.
Me: Because I don’t deserve to.
The Other Me: There. Again.
Me: Don’t I?
The Other Me: This isn’t about what you deserve. It’s about whether you still want to live.
(I freeze.)
The Other Me: You’ve trapped yourself inside your idea of what a teacher is supposed to be. Steady. Rational. Proper. Mature.
And after a while, you don’t just stop allowing yourself to be fragile—you lose the ability to hold anyone else’s fragility too.
Me: ...
The Other Me: When other people show emotion, you don’t know how to comfort them. Not because you’re cold. You have never been gentle with yourself, either.
Me: I just... don’t know what to do.
The Other Me: Because you only know how to manage, not how to stay with someone. You only know how to demand, not how to understand. With students. With other people. With yourself.
(I sit down, as if all my strength has suddenly drained away.)
Me: Then have I never really gotten better?
The Other Me: You have wanted to get better. But you keep choosing the method that feels most familiar—judging yourself.
Because judgement is easier. Change is harder.
(Blackout.)
(The lights slowly rise. Outside, dawn is beginning to show.)
(The phone screen is still on. The Buddhist video is paused on its playback page, its sound almost inaudible.
Me: If I stop judging myself, then what do I have left?
The Other Me: You still have what you actually need to do.
Me: Like what?
The Other Me: Sleep. Wake up. Submit the grades. Mark the papers. Go to the gym. Gradually restore your disrupted sleep schedule.
Admit that you’re anxious. That you have insomnia. That you’re avoidant. And then deal with it.
Me: That sounds ordinary.
The Other Me: Yes. Saving yourself was never meant to be as dramatic as you imagined.
Me: But does that even count as changing?
The Other Me: Not right away.
But at least it’s not staying trapped in that illusion of "I'm in pain, so I must be getting better.”
Me: ...
The Other Me: You keep asking how you can make up for it.
But the question you should really ask isn’t “Can this still be repaired?”
It's, "From this moment on, do I still want to keep being the kind of person who hurts people?”
Me: What if I can’t do it?
The Other Me: Then do it again tomorrow. And again the day after that. Do you think becoming a better person is some kind of revelation?
It isn’t.
It means waking up each day and not surrendering yourself back to the night.
(Pause.)
Me: She’s already learned how to love herself.
The Other Me: Yes.
Me: So should I learn too?
The Other Me: It’s not that you “should too". You should have learned long ago.
Me: But I’m afraid that if I start being kinder to myself, it’ll feel like I’m letting myself off the hook.
The Other Me: That is your stupidest misunderstanding.
Being kind to yourself isn’t absolving your mistakes. It’s stopping the cycle that keeps growing the same mistakes again.
(I look at the stack of papers on the desk.)
Me: So it’s not forgetting.
The Other Me: No.
Me: Not denial.
The Other Me: No.
Me: It involves carrying these regrets while continuing to live.
The Other Me: You are living more honestly than you are now.
Me: Honestly admitting that I’ve ruined things before.
The Other Me: And honestly admitting that you cannot keep ruining yourself.
(Long pause.)
Me: Allow what happened to happen.
The Other Me: Do not glorify what happened.
Me: Allow regret.
The Other Me: Do not drown in regret.
Me: Allow imperfection.
The Other Me: Do not give up on growth.
Me: ...Then what is it?
The Other Me: It is ending the sentence and beginning to leave.
(Silence.)
(I slowly gather one stack of papers and set it aside.) (I pick up my phone and turn off the video.) (I set an alarm.)
Me: Nine-thirty. Too early?
The Other Me: For the person you are right now, it’s a revolution.
Me (with a faint smile): Then let it be one revolution.
The Other Me: Just one?
Me: One for now. Then once again tomorrow.
(The Other Me steps back, slowly disappearing into the darkness.)
The Other Me: Remember: you do not go on living because you deserve forgiveness.
Me: Then why?
The Other Me: Because you still get to choose.
(Pause.)
Me: I’ll try.
The Other Me: Don’t just try to forgive yourself.
Me: Then what else should I try?
The Other Me: Try becoming someone who no longer needs to punish himself just to prove he means it.
(The daylight grows a little brighter.)
(I look at the papers on the desk for a long time.) (Then I gently set down the red pen.) (I stand and walk to the bed.) (I lie down and pull up the blanket.) (My eyes stay open; I do not fall asleep right away.) (My breathing slowly eases.) (I do not get up again.)
Me: (very softly) ...Let it begin with sleep.
(The lights slowly fade.)