and sometimes I lay awake. I lay awake and think and think and think and i form no real conclusions about any of the thoughts I form. There are a million embarrassments and accomplishments I recall and dream up in the thirty minutes it takes for my head to hit the pillow and my eyes to finally close. I know this makes me neurotic, I know a million other people can relate to that feeling, I know it’s just anxiety and I should just learn to breathe better. However, in those thirty minutes I lose myself, I lose whatever good happened that day or that month or that year, and I rehash so many painful, head slapping, bad decisions and I lose myself. I no longer pat myself on the back, i can’t think the happy thoughts, and suddenly all I know is I am a train wreck. An absolute nightmare of a friend, a girlfriend, and ex-girlfriend, and ex-friend, a sister, a cousin, a niece, and employee…the list goes on an on. How do any of us function after those paralyzing thirty minutes? How do we even allow ourselves to speak again after recalling all of the god awful pauses in sentences, the incorrect grammar used during the texting, the procrastination of jobs not well done, the words that you meant kindly but came out bitchy, the hope that the guy behind the counter was actually flirting with you while you text your boyfriend, remembering two years ago when your friend called you fat as a joke and then the look on his face when he realized he didn’t mean to insult your weight but you actually are fat so he very well could have insulted you, all those papers you didn’t turn in in College, that one time where you are pretty sure your roommate heard you having sex with your boyfriend and left as soon as she walked in the front door, the time you know your dad came home and heard you and your boyfriend having sex, all the times you forgot to feed your cat, when you tripped in 9th grade and grabbed the girl nearest you so you didn’t look stupid and her panic when she didn’t want to be see with you. This list could go on forever. Why do we shame ourselves so much? I know i am the only one who remembers such embarrassments, dwells on them so but i cant help it. In those minutes that should be so peaceful they are wrought with so much agony we become insomniacs and then we hate our lives even more because we don’t sleep so we get prescribed Ambien and then we feel guilty for becoming part of this drug culture so we stop taking the Ambien and go back to not sleeping because all we do is think and the thinking doesn’t end because we are so ashamed of who we are. Who has time for any of this? In this culture, in the life, in the great US of A, we aren’t allowed time to work through all of the madness and actually try to learn loving ourselves. We have time and money to pay a shrink to help us with this task but we end up hating the shrink, hating the memories we conjure while at the shrink, and we hate that we pay said shrink our hard earned money so we go home hating life and recycling the nightmare that was trying to go to sleep the night before, and the night before that, and the night before that. How does anyone smile after all of this garbage? How do we ever fall asleep at all?
