Sleepless Questions in the Wee Hours

My mind is abuzz and I cannot find sleep. It's 3:23am and there is beautiful music playing to try to lull me. My bed is comfortable, my sheets soft. My pillows are arranged just so. Yet I lie awake and feel the frenetic energy of my brain and it just won't shut off. It won't shut up. So I thought that perhaps this would help.

Today was a good day. I had a great lunch with my best friend and we talked about the normal things-her kid, my dating life. The sun was shining. I went shopping and bought some summer clothes to salute the warmth of the vitamin D life-giver that graced us today. I even bought a sun dress! And then work. Work was good. Work was pretty easy. It was a much needed break from yesterday at work. I walked with my dear friend on our lunch. I came home and walked my Haven. She ran and ran in the park, her glowing blue collar a testament to her location and a comfort to a dog mommy.

Now I am here. And I've been here. Why am I awake? A large piece is the new man I've met, who I am fascinated by. Another piece is the knowledge that I need to start making life changes. School and living situations and such. I desperately want a space to call my own. I want stability in my career. I want to publish my book and the others to follow. Will I ever have children? Will I end up having my own child? Why am I breaking out and will coconut oil really help my dry scalp?

How do I shut off the flow of thoughts and feelings? I used to be able to sleep so well, so deeply. What am I so worried about? It's not death this time. I'm actually feeling pretty ok about that subject for some reason, It's more the life not lived. The loss of time. The knowing that while I may have another life after this, the consciousness of this Shanti will be forever lost to dreams and feelings and connections that don't make sense but that we feel deep in our soul. It's all the years before and the where I should be at this time in my life. The inadequacies of what I've done and who I am. Yet I really like who I am. It's a strange paradox, loving yourself and still being angry at the choices you've made. Those choices leading you to the person you are that is lovable. Round and round.

And a Pink Floyd song comes on and I'm reminded of 18 year old me and this inevitably brings Charlie into the mind and all that sadness. And I recall the loves of my life and how they shaped me and made me stronger and broke me and reforged me and gosh, it's now 3:40 in the morning and I need to sleep.

A salute to all the other insomniacs out there tonight, worried about things they can't pinpoint and wondering how the hell they're going to face the glorious sun when it rises in a few short hours. Coffee and sweet dreams will hopefully help. And the knowledge that it's Friday.

Peace, Love, and Solidarity in our Humanness

Shanti Elena

On Love and Loss

How many times have you wanted to go back to the moment you met someone and done something differently-looked the other way, not have been so eager, not followed your heart and therefore never experienced the pain of losing that person? Never gone through the heartache of them not responding, never gone through the knowledge that they preferred someone else's company to yours, never had to redefine who you are without them.

Would you go back and change things, like the Lord Huron song "The Night We Met" tells of, or would you experience it all because it was worth it, like in Garth Brooks' "The Dance"? (If you haven't heard either of these, stop reading right now and listen to them for Pete's sake!)

Friends or lovers, this happens to us all. We outgrow each other's usefulness. We empty our love accounts and look elsewhere. We get hurt so badly that to stay would be an impossibility. Betrayal and apathy can go hand in hand and destroy gleefully. And what are we left with?

When I found out my favorite person in the world had betrayed me, destroyed my trust, and turned my world upside down, I went through so many stages of grief. And I was left with the feeling that I wasn't a whole person without him. Who was I without him? Was I funny and warm and likeable without him being beside me? In addition to all those questions, who would ever love me as much as he did? Who would I ever be so comfortable with, who would always think I was the cutest thing even when I was pissed? Who would know what I was thinking before I spoke and who could I tell ANYTHING to? There couldn't possibly be another soul out in the world who could be all these things for me.

But I met someone else who could do most of these things. And even before our first meeting I realized that I was a whole, wonderful (mostly) person with her own witticisms and jokes and magnetism. Now that relationship has also ended. And though I want to stay friends with this person desperately, I am afraid he will reject that and stop full stop. And I will be the one hurting him and he will have to go through all of the questions and doubt and come out the other side changed. And I will have lost a dear friend.

Fear and comfort keep us in situations which one moment seem wonderful and the next unbearable. We fear change, we fear loss, we fully fear hurting the ones we love. We fear losing their imprint on our soul, their contribution to the creation of the person we are meant to be. And we cry and we ache and we have to do it anyway.

Sometimes I don't know which song I would choose. There is so much joy in other people, in falling in love, in the little day to day glances and touches and smiles that make life worth living. But there is so much pain too! And on dark, lonely nights, the pain and joy get mixed and we lie awake while they war in our heads and our hearts. And the tears fall for both sides, and even still we know that we must move on and be strong and protect our heart for the next soul we loan it to. 

Peace, Love, and late night contemplations

Shanti Elena