First the racing heart. Then the life audit — twenty more years of this, is this it? Then the guilt, right on schedule: I have a good life, what’s wrong with me. Then the arithmetic. Then the question with no answer at that hour: what do I actually want? Then — too tired, tomorrow.

There won’t be a tomorrow. Tomorrow gets handled beautifully, like every other day. And the meeting reconvenes the next night, same agenda, same non-conclusion.

I ran this loop for three years and told nobody. Eventually I understood what it was — and it isn’t insomnia, and it isn’t anxiety. It’s an audit. The most conscientious part of you has questions about the accounts, and 3am is the only appointment it can get in your diary.

I’ve written down the whole sequence — the six layers, in the order they fire, what each one is actually asking, and why none of it can resolve at that hour. And the one twenty-minute daylight meeting that quiets the nights, usually straight away.