3:21am
I was pulled from sleep by the voice of the man next to me saying, “Sarah, you’re grinding your teeth.”
Perhaps it was the tropical heat hanging over the bed, or the mind-fogging sleepiness and jet lag, but for a moment, I thought I was somewhere else, in another bed, lying beside a distinctly different man, myself a slightly different girl.
Later the next day, I recalled similar experiences from childhood. When having sleepovers at friends’ houses, occasionally I would be jarred from sleep in the middle of the night and for one stretching moment, have absolutely no idea where I was or how I came to be there. The feeling in this moment is at once strangely pleasant and completely terrifying, like feeling nostalgic and homesick for a place that no longer exists, if it was really ever there to begin with.
