Dream For An Insomniac

I can't sleep. In fact, I've barely slept in days. It would be fine if I were capable of being productive, of using this time to read or clean or socialize, but I can't. I just toss and turn in bed, hoping that eventually my mind will stop racing. I have a thousand thoughts and feelings right now that I can't for the life of me define, categorize, or escape. None of it's logical. None of it really means anything, but all of it haunts me. Sometimes I feel as though it hovers over my bed, waiting for me to close my eyes, waiting for the attack.

I want to cry. I think I haven't allowed myself to cry in a very long time and everything's just building up inside of me. I'm filled with emotion and haven't expressed it. I can't help feeling that a good, long cry would be just what I need, but for whatever reason, the tears won't come. They just won't come. I've even tried to force them, making up scenarios that would induce such an emotion, but nothing works. It feels as though my eyes have been welling up with tears for days, but none of them will fall. There's been no release, no way to break free.

I'm sad and happy and anxious and lost. I just, I don't even know how to describe what it is I'm feeling. I'm completely deprived of sleep and it's making me crazier than usual. I've been on edge all week and I apologize to anyone and everyone who's had to deal with me. Please forgive me, but I haven't been myself.

Which is just the problem I think. I'm not myself. I've been thinking about all of my friends lately. So many have faded out of my life, but what depresses me is not that they're gone, but that I don't notice. There are so many people that I don't even think about anymore except for a few idle moments when something will spark a memory and suddenly I recall them the way you recall a dream you once had, a sort of "oh yeah" moment. That's when I'm sad. When I remember life as though it were a dream I accidentally stumbled across one night.

I used to believe that I could avoid this, that I could somehow be the one who didn't lose touch, didn't lose people. I was going to be the exception, but what I've come to learn is that there are no exceptions. We all lose people in some way or another, and I'm not trying to be depressing, I'm just trying to express some discoveries I've made. A lot of what they all say is true. I guess I've just become cynical, and growing more cynical with every waking moment. Especially now, when almost all of my moments are spent awake. I would give anything to know that I could rest right now. I'm so tired. So damn tired. Of everything.

Meade wrote me the most beautiful, wonderful letter on her blog today. It made me feel so happy, so special, so like the person I used to be. I’m so grateful to her for it, for igniting within me a fire I had forgotten existed. Part of me is so sad that I've forgotten it. Part of me is so sad that I'm not that person anymore. Part of me is so sad that I had to grow up and lose people.

It's not that they're not still my friends. I could call any of them up to talk right now I'm sure. It's just that we've all changed from the people that we used to be. We've all grown separately. We've all grown apart. We've all grown up. And, that's just how it should be, that's what life is all about.

It's just, we're not children anymore and it scares me. It scares me that with each passing day, I find it more and more difficult to remember what childhood felt like. I'm beginning to forget the simplicity and grace of being young and idealistic, and I loved the piece of myself that embraced that. I miss that piece. The world is a much darker place without it.

I want to weep. I want to weep from the very depths of me where my soul is beginning to fade. I want to weep for my soul. I want to weep for sadness and happiness and beauty and life. I want to weep for the loss of my youth, for the friends who have started to disappear from my life, for the friends who are still here. I want to weep for the job that I'm leaving. I want to weep for the best friend who's leaving me. I want to weep for soul mates, for love, and for my parents inability to find that. I want to weep for the way it reflects on me. I want to weep for my selfishness. I want to weep for my country and for my country's selfishness. I want to weep for myself.

I guess I haven't been able to put into words everything that's been bothering me. I like to pretend that it's some grand idea, some overall problem that can be analyzed and fixed, but it isn't. It's a thousand little things that all need to be dealt with and expressed to people individually. I just don't have the courage to say them. That's what I miss most about my formal self, my ability to pour my heart and soul out to people. I can never seem to put myself out there like that anymore. I haven't been able to write a real letter in so long. It scares me to think that I'm not as full of love as I used to be.

There's a Lucille Clifton poem I love called "For The Mad," although I think it mirrors the journey into adulthood as well, which may or may not be a coincidence depending on how you feel. It goes as follows; "You will be alone at last in the sanity of your friends. Brilliance will fade away from you and you will settle in dimmed light. You will not remember how to mourn your dying difference. You will not be better, but they will say you are well." Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever feel well again or if being well is just facade we all create to avoid mourning our dying difference, our fading brilliance, our lack of sleep. I'm just so tired. So damn tired. I need to weep. I need to cry. I need to sleep. I need to stop being so emotional, but perhaps I'm only dreaming.