“Who do you spend the most time with?”
We were sitting on the roof of his building in 2013, just past midnight. It had just rained. The kind of summer storm that passes through without warning and leaves everything damp and electric.
He was drinking canned coffee. I had a cheap beer I didn’t like but kept sipping.
We were 24. Or maybe 25. That blurry stretch of years where you still believe that everything unresolved will somehow resolve itself.
He lit a cigarette and asked,
“Who do you spend the most time with?”
I thought he meant romantically. Or maybe family. But he just kept looking at the cloudless sky like it owed him something.
I said, “I don’t know. I guess my coworkers?”
He nodded. “Yeah, but I meant… when you’re walking alone. When you’re lying in bed. When you’re waiting for your train. Who’s there with you?”
I knew the answer.
He did too.
It was me.
It’s always been me.
You don’t realize it at first. How much time you spend with your own voice in your head.
The one that second-guesses what you said at dinner.
The one that wonders if your best years already happened.
The one that gets quiet when things go well, then panics in the silence.
People come and go.
Cities change.
Jobs end.
But that voice? That version of you you carry around?
That one doesn’t leave.
And if you don’t learn to live with it—
If you don’t learn to sit beside yourself without flinching—
You’ll spend your whole life trying to fill that space with noise.
That night on the rooftop, the conversation drifted. We talked about how we’d both read Norwegian Wood too young.
About the girl he used to love who only texted him when she was sad.
About how we both wanted to go somewhere quieter, maybe a cabin, maybe the coast.
But what stayed with me wasn’t the cigarette smoke or the stars or the sound of the AC units humming below.
It was the question.
Who do you spend the most time with?
Ten years later, I still think about it.
When I cancel plans.
When I walk home alone.
When I catch my reflection in a dark window and feel like a stranger to myself.
I don’t always like the answer.
But I’ve stopped trying to escape it.
I take myself for coffee.
I sit on park benches without looking at my phone.
I forgive myself more than I used to.
Because if I’m going to spend a lifetime with someone,
I might as well try to make peace with them.
Even if they still flinch at the sound of their own thoughts sometimes.
Even if they’re still learning how to stay.
Lessons From the Rooftop
- You will always spend the most time with yourself. Learn to make it bearable.
- That voice in your head? It’s not always right, but it’s always there.
- Don’t rush to fill silence. Let it teach you something.
- Some people leave. Some cities forget you. But the person inside your chest doesn’t go anywhere.
So take them with you.
Be kind to them.
And maybe—just maybe—start liking their company.
Even if they still drink beer they don’t like sometimes.
If this moved you, share it with someone else who’s spending a little too much time alone with themselves lately. And if you haven’t already, subscribe below—so we can keep having these conversations, quietly, when you need them most.
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