Before bed, we wash our faces. Slap a generous amount of aloe vera on our skin. Take selfies with no context or makeup or filters just to remember how we looked like that day. Before bed, we think about the things we’ve achieved—or at least—the things we’ve done today. We proceed then by thinking about how to maneuver tomorrow’s challenges.

Before bed, we consider how peculiar and strange this year and the last have been and we thank the Creator of the universe for having carried us thus far. for having taken care of us in the midst of uncertainties.

Before bed, we make a list of the so many things we are most grateful for in life.

Before bed we breathe. We pause. We think about the best friend who’s still trying to secure a job overseas. or the other best friend who’s focusing on her bakery business and teaching piano classes. Or the other best friend who’s leaving an internship at your place by the end of next month. or say, the one guy best friend who’s probably still busy working at this time of day. We think about the cousins we haven’t met in a year. About the friends that’ve grown distant in space and time, about the ones that suddenly reappeared as if by magic.

Before bed, we wonder whether anything would go back to normal, if it ever was, and the answer was most likely no, it won’t, so we sigh. We wonder whether the restaurants that closed in our favorite shopping mall would ever reopen again, since there were memories in that exact place. We think about how much we have to save up to buy a specific thing we’ve been wanting for months, but find out that our brains don’t work as well when sleepy, so we drop the topic.

Before bed, we sincerely hope that better days are coming for the ones we love and care about—there are probably more than thirty people on the list but we felt that it wasn’t enough—

So before bed, we pray.