wide awake

Most nights I'm half asleep by the time my head hits the pillow. Most nights I'm fully asleep just a few minutes later.

Three nights ago, that was not the case. The littlest thing had set me off, and my brain was chasing circles around itself... Several times I had to get up and walk around to remind myself that my half-dreams were not real, and that my thought pattern was not rational. I finally watched a movie for a few minutes on my laptop to get my mind back on "normal" mode.

There are very few things that frighten me anymore. I live in a strange city on the other side of the country from everything familiar, and I don't lay awake thinking about that. I'm not homesick, and although I have a somewhat severe inferiority complex, that also does not keep me up at night.

What I am terrified of, to the point where it can cripple me, is hurting people. It forms the vast majority of the motivations for decisions I make in life. I am terrified of my imperfections, of the ways that those imperfections affect those I love. I don't know whether to embrace this as a strength or fight it as a weakness. I suppose anything in life to the extreme is not healthy. Luckily, I am often able to rationalize my fears away, reminding myself that everything will be okay, just as it has always been okay before. The problem comes when things weren't always okay...the biggest Catch 22 of all. To hurt or to hurt, that is the question.

I keep promising myself that I'll leave everyone alone. That I won't share myself, because sharing myself always ends up too far down that road that I've traveled too many a time. I hate that I share myself. I hate that I am often vulnerable, because it so often backfires. And sure, I could just tell myself that it's okay to be myself...but I honestly don't think that it is. After all, anything in extreme can be a bad thing.

And so, I fight to stay reserved...fearing that to let myself go would mean my world crashing down around me again...