Where espresso meets existential crisis: 4am Thoughts No One Asked For

4am. I was awake. Staring at the ceiling, trying to capture the meaning of life.

If I lived alone, I think I’d be one of those people sat at their kitchen island at 4am, coffee next to me, laptop open, typing like the fate of the universe depended on my blog post. It’s probably a good thing I don’t live alone. My mum would definitely emerge in her dressing gown, squinting at me and asking if I was “alright” in that tone that suggests she suspects I’m either having a breakdown or starting a pyramid scheme.

It’s rare I get a full night of uninterrupted sleep. I’m either bouncing off the walls (metaphorically — the walls are fine, I checked) or I’m lying there with groundbreaking questions like:

• “Who was the first person to see a banana, and what did they think?”

• “If a fly lands on my cup of coffee, is it stealing, sharing, or judging me?”

• “Do clouds know they’re pretty?”

Some people call it overthinking; I call it research. Granted, the research never actually leads to anything — there’s no thesis, no grand reveal — but that’s not the point. At 4am, everything feels like it could be the point.

And then my brain, unsupervised, will suddenly switch topics entirely:

• Should I learn pottery?

• Do I have the face shape for a fringe?

• I wonder how many of my neighbours are currently awake and what they’re doing. Have they just given in and got up?

By the time I’m done imagining my new life as a fringe-wearing potter who lives exclusively on croissants, the sun’s coming up. Which is poetic, in an “I’m very tired” kind of way.

And maybe that’s the real magic of 4am — it’s the one time of day where you can reinvent your entire personality, rewrite your life plan, question the clouds, and still be back in bed before anyone realises you’ve been awake.