Midnight in the Storm: Breathing Through the Hard Hours

It’s midnight.

The house is quiet. The storm outside is not.

Rain taps against the windows like a steady little drum. Thunder rolls low in the distance, like the earth is shifting its weight in the dark.

Everyone else is asleep.

I’m not.

Pain has its own clock, and it rarely cares about the hours we’re supposed to keep. Pain wakes me up when I should be resting. Pain holds me in a silent space that doesn’t feel peaceful. Pain makes the minutes stretch out longer than they should.

I went to the Emergency Room today, not because I wanted to and not because it was fun. I had an Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) flare. My skin literally felt like it was on fire, and I could barely move from the pain.

Now, though, I'm a little better. I'm home. I'm here. I'm present. I'm not well by any stretch of the imagination, and my skin still is burning like the sunburn you get on a hot day in July, but I'm home.

There’s nothing to do but wait now. Wait for the storm to pass. Wait for the pain medicine to catch up. Wait for morning.

In these moments, the world feels very far away. It’s just me and the sound of rain. Me and the slow, stubborn work of breathing through another hour.

I don’t have anything profound to say about it. No silver lining. No bright, packaged lesson.

Some nights are just long. Some storms are just storms.

But I’m still here. And if you’re reading this — if you’ve had a night like this too — so are you.

And that’s enough for now.