Lightning

I woke up thirsty, so quietly got out of bed in hopes of not disturbing the dogs – and headed to the kitchen for water.  While I’m standing at the sink, I see the flashes of lightning go across the sky – not just the light but the actual bolt, branches reaching out for clouds and ground.

Lightning is usually rare for Portland but this summer, we have been seeing a lot of it.  Or a lot more than usual anyway.  At 2am, I was standing there drinking water and watching the lightning.

I crawled back into bed – the beasts undisturbed – and watched the lightning through the window while I tried to go back to sleep.

But my brain turned on – and the thoughts started shooting through it like its own lightning storm.

The upcoming art show – and how little promotion my team has done for it, and how that will translate into numbers on opening night.

This weekend and the things I have on the agenda – not many things, in truth – but at 3am, it seems like a problem to solve even though there IS no problem to solve.

The thoughts around my getting enough sleep so I can start getting up at 5am again and exercising since it’s been too hot in the house to do it in the afternoon. Ironic that I’m up thinking about how frustrated insomnia has made me so that I have traded exercise for sleep – and thinking about it at 4am is not helping the cause.

I would try to read to distract myself – a book series I’ve been enjoying immensely – and I’d find myself drifting off to sleep but into weird, twisted dreams where those thoughts bolting through my mind have now reached inside them.  I’d end up waking myself up to escape the crazy dreams.  And the cycle would start over again.

Just new thoughts going through my head.  It’s like in the dark of the night is when the stupid thoughts, the untrue thoughts, the fears – they all come out to play in my head.  All I can do it smack them aside, try not to let the things they are whispering in my head ignite a flame by giving them any thought.  Fuck, my screwy hormones right now were giving them enough encouragement – I didn’t need to help it.  So I kept reminding myself:

“Just let it be – it will be as it is meant to be.”

“Action is truth.”

“There is nothing you can change or even influence, so worrying about it won’t do it either.”

“Yes, that is something I’m deeply afraid of – I acknowledge it – but won’t let it control me.”

“At 3am, everything looks much worse than it is – so I will think about it in the morning.”

I finally fell asleep at almost 5am.

Alarm went off at 6am.

Yeah, coffee is my friend already.

But at least, in the light of day, the crap in my head looks stupid – and idiotic – and unnecessary.  So I guess that’s something.

What do you think?

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