The Loneliest Hour

Meditating on all-nighters and pre-dawn isolation.

The loneliest hour of the day is 3 AM. As an artist, a student, and a recovering night owl, I’ve spent more than a few nights working until dawn. Without fail, as soon as it hits 3 AM, I become acutely aware of how alone I am in the world. Everyone in the house is asleep, separated from me by only a few hours and the infinite depths of their subconscious.

It’s around 3 AM that I hit a wall. If I’m working voluntarily, I’ll quit. If I’m working on a project and I have to keep going for a deadline, I’ll like crying for a few minutes, then I fart around on YouTube, then I keep going. Once I hit 4 AM, I’m fine. That’s the point where I transition from “I’m up late” to “I’m up early.”

But man, 3 AM is the hill to beat.

The final stretch where I still desperately want to go to bed, to sleep like everyone else around me, to save myself the misery of a long day without rest. And for anyone who still has a few hours of work left to do at 3 AM, it can feel impossible to get through that night — as though 3 AM is the only hour that you’ll ever have again.

Like any other terrible, middle-of-the-night fear, it goes away eventually. All of us face our 3 AM hours. A few minutes of mental rest, maybe a snack, and a new soundtrack are what…