I've Been Thinking

It's 1am and I'm exhausted.
It's 1am and I'm ignoring my burning eyes and my heavy limbs.
It's 1am and I'm avoiding sleep.
More accurately, I'm avoiding the quiet that comes before the sleep I wish I could dive directly into.
I just finished The Office series finale for the 50th+ time and I'm starting over at Episode 1. I'm browsing Facebook. I'm playing Candy Crush. Because I know when I stop, it all begins.

When I turn off the distractions, and the lights and words and sounds leave my brain, they will free up space and that space cannot sit empty. That space will be filled with worry and fear and discontentment.

When all is dark and still, my brain becomes a shoreline on which waves of thoughts will break. First they begin as ripples but eventually they turn to rolling seas and tsunamis and I'm drowning.

I'm thinking of things I regret doing and saying and so many more things I regret not doing and saying. I am a coward and anxiety is the yellow paint I bathe myself in at night and generously reapply by day.

I'm thinking of all the ways I fall short and all the ways I'll continue to fail.
I'm thinking of how much I want to be different. I want to be peaceful, and graceful, and free. I want to be a perfect, patient, exemplary mother and wife. I want to be thin, and beautiful, and funny, and talented...and not crazy.
I want to be wanted.
I'm thinking how could anyone want me around? I'm thinking I'm a burden.
I'm thinking of my heart's desires and will they ever be fulfilled? My desperate longing is but a flippant passing thought to someone else.
I'm thinking I have no control.
I'm thinking I'm angry about that, helpless, scared.
I'm thinking my heartache is irrelevant.
I'm thinking my feelings are insignificant, pathetic, redundant, overwhelming, confusing, ignored, forgotten, discarded.

I'm thinking of how my bed feels like the most comfortable, secure place in the world when the morning sky is gray and dewy or in the afternoon when golden rays fall scattered across the floor, but at night it feels like a prison.
It may as well be nails or bricks; I may as well be in chains, with the way my body trembles and sweats and rebels.

It's 115am and ten years have gone by in the last quarter hour.
I'm spinning and falling and I just want to land.
I want to collapse and be absorbed by the bed beneath me and rest but there is no rest.

I'm thinking I've brought this on myself.
I'm thinking I can get five solid hours if I fall asleep right now, no four and a half, four and fifteen minutes.
I'm thinking tomorrow I'm going to be dragging my feet.
I'm thinking I just want to be normal. What is normal?
I'm thinking I'm definitely going to call the therapist tomorrow...or the next day...sometime this week, I swear.
I'm thinking I'm so hard to live with. Am I so hard to love?
I'm thinking about praying but I'm thinking no one's listening.
I'm thinking about that time in 4th Grade and that big event next week and the pile of laundry I can't seem to make disappear.
I'm thinking my cat is staring at something, what if it's a bug, will bugs be all over me in my sleep?
I'm thinking about my kids growing too quickly. Do they know how much I love them? Do they know they are my sun? Do I do enough, and how can I possibly be enough? Why isn't their love and existence enough to keep the dark spots in my brain illuminated?
I'm thinking I have so much light in my life and I'm doing myself an injustice.
I'm thinking everything will seem better in the morning.
I'm thinking morning is just a couple hours away.
I'm thinking of all the fresh tasks that will be on my list when the new day arrives.
I'm thinking shut up and go to sleep, damn it.

I'm thinking, "I wish there was a way to stop thinking."

Goodnight.