Late Night Radio Stations

a true story.

The other night, I couldn’t fall asleep. I put my earbuds in, queued up a few podcasts, turned my usual x 1.4 play speed down to 1.0, and closed my eyes, waiting to fall asleep. Most days, I’d fall asleep after 20 minutes or so, wake up knowing I'd dozed off, and put away my earbuds back to their case before sinking deep into slumber. On other days, I’d wake up in the morning and look for my small earbuds everywhere on the bed and have no idea how my podcast stopped playing. On the rest of the days, I’d finish listening to all the episodes I’d queued up and still lying there wide awake, regretting my decision to drink that cold brew after 3:30 p.m.

My insomnia playlist is special. It's reserved for shows that are deep, tender, vulnerable, and sometimes, dark. One of the shows that frequents this list has been Dear Sugars. The hosts, Sheryl Stray and Steve Almond read letters sent by the listeners and advise on questions about love, betrayals, heartbreaks, body image, and dark secrets. I discovered the show long after it had ended, so every new episode I listened to was one episode less for my insomnia list. My next go-to is Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin. She talks to couples during real therapy sessions, asks them questions, and counsels them on how to move forward. If I still couldn’t fall asleep, I’d turn to Modern Love from the New York Times. It’s not just the gentle voice of the hosts and the intimate conversations that can quiet down the noise inside me. It’s also knowing the difficult emotions of strangers and the simple existence of other human beings that calms me down when insomnia hits.

Late-night listening started early for me. Growing up in China, I started listening to the radio in the car with my parents and children’s audiobooks as early as I could remember. During my toddler years, according to my mom, I’d fall asleep on her bedtime storytelling or the cassette tape playing children’s stories. The beautiful thing about a cassette tape is that it stops on its own when one side is finished. It's the ultimate sleep timer.

Maybe that was how I fell in love with falling asleep listening to stories. When I started sixth grade, my mom bought me an MP3 player. I played music during the day and turned it into a radio player at night. As part of my bedtime routine, I’d get under my comforter, get my MP3 player out, put my headphones on, quickly go through all the local radio stations, and stop at the station where real people were talking.

There were these radio shows in China where people could call in from all over the city to talk to the show hosts. I remember listening to people, mostly local high school and college students, professing their love for their crushes over the radio, because doing it in person is too scary. Some would do it more discretely, asking the host to relay their love messages without revealing their voices. Some simply called to request breakup songs so the listeners could also feel their sadness, treating the show like a karaoke station.

The radio hosts used the sky reference a lot. They'd called themselves "connecting with listeners from the sky" and would conclude the show with "I'll meet you all again soon in the sky." I didn’t quite understand how radio worked then and just thought this reference was dreamy and cool. What I loved the most was how gentle and tender they talked, as if not doing so would wake up those who were already asleep or break the hearts of those who were already heartbroken. I’d gradually sink into my bed listening to these unrequited love confessions and poignant songs and would pull the headphone jack away from my MP3 player when I was halfway to the dreamland.

Other times, I’d pause to listen to local radio shows that invited doctors, often a urologist or an OB/GYN, to offer medical advice to listeners who called in with sexual and reproductive health issues. I was always intrigued, as a middle schooler listening to these conversations without adult supervision. Curiosity would eventually turn into boredom toward the complicated adult world and I'd fall asleep soon enough. Now an adult thinking back on all of this, I am shocked at how a radio show would allow people to talk so openly about their intimate health issues and allow physicians to provide medical advice over the phone without tests or seeing the patients. But I don’t blame them, quick medical advice over the phone is easier than appointments and long lines at the hospital.

Late-night radio stations became my cure for sleepless nights, and subsequently, a bedtime routine. Being immersed in strangers' stories didn’t allow room for my mind to wander around in the middle of the night, and knowing that there were other people who were also awake this late into the night offered comfort and safety. It was usually around ten o'clock, but for my middle school self, it was late enough.

Last week, when I couldn’t fall asleep again well past midnight, I decided to find a local radio show where people could call in to talk. I typed in “radio station“ in my app store and downloaded the free app with semi-good reviews. The first app was full of advertisements, so I quickly deleted it. I then settled on another one that had a cleaner interface and had icons of local radio stations lining up. To not wake up my husband who was already breathing evenly, I dimmed my screen, put on my earbuds, and quietly scrolled through the app in the dark searching for my “insomnia radio stations”. Most stations were either playing music or random local ads.

After a few scrolls, I finally heard a woman talking on KQED, a Bay Area local public radio station, with a British accent speaking: “This is the BBC.” I then realized that it was already morning over there and people were starting their days. The broadcaster spoke with a sense of urgency and importance that was only fitting for waking someone up, so I had to go back to my podcasts. Still, nothing comforts me into my sleep better than that live late-night radio show from my childhood, where regular people talked about their crushes and heartbreaks at their most vulnerable moments.

For now, I’ll have to settle with Esther Perel’s pre-recorded voice.