Do you ever lie in bed, unable to sleep, mind racing over thoughts of nothing, heart feeling as though it will explode, all your bones aching, trying to bury your head and wet burning eyes into your arm or pillow?
I think that I am afraid of the night.
I like the night. I am the most productive at night. But at night, it sometimes seems that the whole world disappears and I am left all alone. Not just alone, but lonely. I like to be alone sometimes, but I fear being lonely. I think that I would like to live somewhere where the nights are never without at least a faint twilight, because when I am alone in the light, I still feel somehow secure. I feel that people are not far away and that I am not so alone. But when I am alone in the dark, I begin to feel insecure. I feel that people asleep are corpses and those awake are the dull glassy-eyed wandering undead.
These past few years, I have been feeling less optimistic about the direction of my life, and what the world has in store for me. I had attributed this to only seeing my parents an average of two one-week periods each year, and being twice lured into love and then abandoned for an easier alternative. I assumed that it might be due to a lack of the immediate presence of unconditional love and a general trend of abandonment. I thought that spending time at home and with family might alter my perspective, but nothing has really changed at all. All that has really changed is that I have gained an awareness of how easy it will be to run away, but how hard it will be to forget. I think perhaps I am also irritated more to reaffirm the obligation that any child has to outlive parents who care for it. It is not that such would necessarily be my decision, but I just don’t like being pressured out of a choice. I like to have options, even if one option is to cash in, opt out, throw in the towel, and take the long bus ride home.