Dear Insomnia...

Welcome back. It's been a while since I've spent so many quiet hours in the darkness listening to everyone else sleep. I'm sure you're back for a reason and I'm sure I know what it is.

So, here I am. I'm up. I've made the coffee and given up the tossing and turning. You win. Now what?  Now I write?  I suddenly feel like I've been hurled back in time...10, 15, 20 years. And here I am, again. Doing what I do, in order to keep myself from going mad. This seems to be the only reason I write anything at all. Ever. When things are going smooth or I am at peace I don't write anything. I don't even have the urge most times. Lucky (or unlucky) for me I have four blogs and several boxes filled with old journals to prove that I haven't been at peace very often.  That would have to be the way of it, wouldn't it?  I guess it's no accident that some of the best writers were either menatally ill or alcoholics.

Anyway. I don't expect to write anything good tonight/this morning...whatever the hell it is. I'm just, like I said, trying to keep from going mad. Have you ever stumbled across something by accident. Something you probably weren't supposed to see? Well for me, that hardly ever happens. Mostly because I don't stumble. I look. I look, and I look and in the end I usually find. But this time I wasn't looking, and it kind of threw me for the proverbial loop. So to speak. And then some. And so on. Blah, blah, blah.

And here I am. Left alone, in the dark, with my own thoughts. Racing thoughts, mind you, which are probably the fastest racing thoughts on the track. And as if the speed alone weren't enough, they also twist and turn around corners and ride up and down hills. It's like a god damn amusement park in my head. And yet, it is far from amusing.

So, yeah. Here I am. What I would love. Just absolutely love...would be sleep, of course...but after that...I would love to wake up different. To wake up as someone who just doesn't care enough to let things bother her. Someone who is at peace and let's all the shit just roll off her shoulders. (as opposed to having it take up residence there.)  I want to feel calm, secure, safe. I don't want to always have to have my guard up. To constantly be waiting for other shoe to drop. I don't. I really, fucking don't. But that won't happen today. Not just because I'm not going to sleep but because I think when it happens I will hear a snap. And I haven't heard it yet.

See? This is the kind of shit I write after no sleep. My arm is twitching from typing at a weird angle and my shoulders have tensed up again. Worrying about things I don't neccessarily need to worry about  is automatic for me. "It's in her nature", they said when I was a child. Maybe so. Not believing people when they say I should, or I can, is also a knee jerk reaction. But let's face it...when everyone who's ever said they would never leave has...what do we really have to base our trust on. I know, somewhere deep down in the rational side of my brain, that this is very juvenile and retarded way to think, and react, and feel. I KNOW that. And yet, like I said, it's pretty fucking automatic. 

Okay. So, let's see. It's almost time for more coffee, I guess. I could probably put the news on and get lost, momentarily, in the disasters of the world. Or I could watch a show on the DVR about some made up disaster. Either sounds more welcoming that sitting here in the one of my own making. So, I guess I'll do that. Until next time...

Hope, who doesn't know exactly how much time she has left, but does know she doesn't want to waste another minute of it feeling like this.