September 27, 2024
The Vampire Chronicles
I’ve always felt more alive at night. There’s something exhilarating about the stillness of the world when everyone else is asleep, trapped in their beds by the rules of the sun. In those quiet hours, time is finally my own. No calls, no emails, no pointless obligations—just silence, darkness, and the hum of my thoughts.
Daytime, on the other hand, is full of just that—time. And time, when dictated by someone else, is insufferable. “Be at your desk by 8 AM, just in case someone needs to talk to you.” Except no one ever does, so you just sit there, staring at the clock, wondering how many times you can pretend to be busy without actually doing anything productive. We box our lives into these neat little slots, chopping ourselves into pieces to fit into a puzzle that, frankly, makes no sense.
Take today, for example. Nine—yes, NINE—30-minute meetings. One after the other, each one its own little universe of demands, expectations, and tedious PowerPoint slides. It’s like watching an episode from every single one of your favorite shows in one day. You’re just getting into the story, the characters, the flow, and—bam!—on to the next. By the end of it, I feel like I’ve been force-fed a buffet of mediocre plotlines, and none of them have a satisfying ending. How does anyone get into a brain flow with that kind of interruption? Spoiler alert: they don’t.
And this is where the vampire idea starts to sound appealing. The whole “giving up your soul” thing? Honestly, what soul? The one I’ve traded away, piece by piece, to sit through back-to-back meetings and watch my inbox fill up with more to-dos? Maybe a vampire’s deal isn’t so bad after all. No sun, no 8 AM meetings, no pretending to be engaged in a discussion about optimizing synergy or some other nonsense. It’s not like I’d be losing much.
When I’m around most people, I’m masking anyway. It’s a neurodivergent trait I never recognized for what it was—until I did. And let me tell you, I’ve gotten pretty damn good at it. Smiling, nodding, saying all the right things at the right times. But it’s exhausting. I’m tired of pretending to fit into the role of “high-functioning adult” during the day, only to collapse into the comfort of the night like a tired actor after a long performance.
And that’s what night gives me: a break from the performance. There’s no need to be “on.” No mask, no act, just me. Wrapped in my favorite fuzzy blanket, nestled in my favorite chair, a cat sprawled on my lap, another draped over my feet. The world has quieted down, the demands of the day have drifted away, and I can finally just exist. The only time I truly feel like myself.
It’s 10:30 PM. I’m finally sitting down after a day of work, parenting, and loving my guy. Even the dog, who’s spent the last hour looking at me like I owe him a personal apology for something, is asleep. He’s got a case of fall fever and would probably love to be a vampire himself if it meant escaping all the daytime rules.
I can breathe again. I let out a deep sigh, my shoulders relaxing for the first time in hours. This is the time I cherish. A time to think, to write, to research, to be. No meetings, no deadlines, no pretending. This is when I feel alive.
So, why not vampires? Not in a creepy, I-drink-blood-and-sleep-in-a-coffin way, but in a fun, liberating, Twilight-Edward-wants-to-make-you-immortal kind of way. Was Bella’s choice really that hard? No more rushing to fit into the day’s slots. No more pretending to care about corporate lingo or navigating the unwritten social rules of every encounter. Vampires have it all figured out: they skip the day altogether and get right to the good stuff.
When I was younger, TV was the closest thing I had to an escape. No internet, no endless entertainment options—just a lineup of shows you had to watch live or miss forever. You got attached to characters, obsessed over cliffhangers, and scheduled your life around them. Beverly Hills 90210 wasn’t waiting for me to finish my homework, and re-runs were the bane of my existence. And now, even Netflix is trying to bring back the cliffhanger, like a cruel joke on those of us who are still traumatized by the ER season finales.
But at least TV back then didn’t try to pretend it was something it wasn’t. You knew what you were getting: a story that would inevitably get interrupted. Kind of like my life now, come to think of it. I’m all in on one episode, only to be yanked away to another storyline.
So here I am, writing this very entry, enjoying the quiet and the freedom of these stolen hours. For anyone who feels trapped in the life they’ve built, boxed in by the endless “shoulds” and “musts,” I hope this resonates. I hope it makes you laugh. I hope it makes you think.
Maybe you’ll see that the person staring back at you in the mirror isn’t really you, but a carefully curated version, dressed up and sent out into the world like a Barbie doll. And if that’s the case, maybe it’s time to rip off the mask, shed the expectations, and give yourself a little room to breathe. To exist.
Because at the end of the day—or night—what’s the point of living if you never get to truly be yourself? Maybe being a vampire isn’t about losing your soul. Maybe it’s about finding the freedom to live like you’ve already given up the need to please everyone else.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s a freedom worth staying up all night for.