My Year of Rest and Relaxation

by Ottessa Moshfegh

This was the beauty of sleep—reality detached itself and appeared in my mind as casually as a movie or a dream. It was easy to ignore things that didn’t concern me.

“You’re needy,” I said. “Sounds frustrating.”

I just can’t stand it. I’d rather kill myself than be all alone,” she said. “At least you have options.”

“I went to Columbia.” “That’s good for me to know, but not much use to you in your condition. Education is directly proportional to anxiety, as you’ve probably learned, having gone to Columbia.

“I’d rather be alone than anybody’s live-in prostitute,” I said to Reva.

OH, SLEEP. Nothing else could ever bring me such pleasure, such freedom, the power to feel and move and think and imagine, safe from the miseries of my waking consciousness. I was not a narcoleptic—I never fell asleep when I didn’t want to. I was more of a somniac. A somnophile. I’d always loved sleeping.

yes❤️

My past life would be but a dream, and I could start over without regrets, bolstered by the bliss and serenity that I would have accumulated in my year of rest and relaxation.

I prayed that my subconscious understood the value of convenience. Amen.

I spent a lot of time staring at the ceiling that year, trying to cancel out thoughts about death with thoughts about nothingness.

fuck.

The lightheartedness in that wish struck me, and for a moment I felt joyful, and then I felt completely exhausted.