Insomniac

Sleep, you evade me. Not once, not twice. But always. This is a constant dance; a chase, if you will. You tease me, and lure me to your sweet dreamy edges, then you run and hide. You flee from me like a shy lover. Where do you go when you leave me, sweetest sleep? who's head do you fill with dreams and rest when you refuse to succumb to me?

Do you know the effects of your wicked little game? Of course not. You are a state of my own mind and body. You have no understanding, no emotional capability. You simply are.

It is my mind that keeps me running on empty. It is a product of my very own chemicals that allow me to drift closely, but never fully, to sleep. My mind becomes a dangerous place at night when it refuses to allow me the sweet escape of rest. It twists the little noises around me into something terrifying. It makes the shadows come to life and dance across my room, tormenting my overactive imagination.

It takes every issue of the day, week, and month and plays it over and over, like a skipping record. And with every instant replay, it highlights yet another insignificant detail, causing me to ponder, sometimes for hours at a time, as to the meaning of that particular detail.  Every little picture, the slightest change of tone in voice, something I could have said during a conversation, something someone else has said. It all magnifies in my treasonous mind.

I feel trapped in my own head...and suffocated by my emotions. I can't breath enough to keep up with the whirl wind in my mind. Too many thoughts spinning faster than a twister inside my poor self-tortured mind.

And of all the thoughts, all the things I fear when the insomnia takes it's wicked grip on me, which ones always come out on top? It's always "Am I good enough?" For anything. Am I good enough for anything. Do I really deserve...anything? How does one know they deserve to be happy? Or to do amazing things with their life? Or find that one person they can truly trust with everything? How can I ever deserve that.

Does humanity deserve it? A second chance, true love, true happiness. When we all have done so much to wrong one another, and hurt one another..... in these moments, my mind knows the answer is "yes" most of us do, in fact, deserve those things. But the insomnia's iron grip screams back that NO. I do NOT deserve that. How could I? After all I have done in this life, how could I ever expect that any happiness I find will last? What makes me think after the pain I have caused I should get that chance?

The fight usually takes every last drop of energy. The fight within, one side pulling me down, the other reminding me there is a Savior who died for me so that I can, in fact, HAVE that second chance at love and happiness. That there is nothing that can take the love of my family and friends away from me, no matter how depressed I get, or anxious. The ones who love me will never forsake me.
If I have learned anything from the last four months, it's that.