Ruts and Routines...

I am not a creature of habit. For some odd reason I am not consistent in any capacity other than being destructively impulsive. I'm all about restrospect rather than forsight, which is probably why I always find myself in unfortunate situations. This is definitely the root of my increasingly recurring anxiety, which is slowly affecting my sleep patterns. You grow up thinking that your brain shuts down during sleep, sort of like a computer that needs to be rebooted. Your body is nothing but metabolical functions and cell repair, eyelids twittering over the whites of your eyes in an REM cycle.

But no. The day follows you, thoughts trailing into dark corners of your mind, resurfacing only in the unconscious state of dreaming. Tossing and turning, I feel like I spend the whole of 8 hours merely trying to get comfortable. Trying to curl up into the fetal position and find some sort of transient peace. Instead, I wake up aching, breathless and exhausted merely from the effort of attempting sleep. My chest feels tight and weighted like a long-time smoker with congested lungs.

Most mornings, the only way I know I have actually slept are the waking recollections of vivid dreams. Broken memories and fragmented images which seem so tangible and real, but are just obscure enough to be recognized as nothing but my imagination in the night hours. I awaken with headaches, all creaky bones and stiff joints. Cloudy thoughts. That existential feeling of dread, where you question the day's purpose. The purpose of your routine. It stinks of dramatics, reaks of overthinking inevitable things that just are. But we all have our doubts, the prickly notions of ourselves that tug at the back of your brainstem like silent assailants you can't shake.

You can see it in a person's eyes. The one who hasn't slept or who spent the night crying, angry, or worrying about things they can't control. No one is truly immune, it has to happen eventually. Eyes transparent like stainless glass, simply color with nothing behind them but the light of another lifeless day.

I'm not sure when the exact moment occurred that we trapped ourselves in awkwardness instead of bliss. I don't know when we became encased in this vague medium where actions are premeditated and words are left unsaid. I can no longer draw the line between what isn't and what should be.

I suppose that people have different ways of acceptance. Realization is subjective, and it is always relative. You grow to understand differences without neglecting truths in a reality where everything seems so disproportionate. I can't expect other personas to imitate mine.

For a week I'll be happy every day. For a month I will write every single day. For a year I will wake up and go to work every passing day. And then it all stops. It fades to black. That creature of habit sidles up beside me in my dreams, and it all stops as I run screaming. Screaming in my sleep, waking with a strained voice and a need of escape. Find another impulse. Keep running. Keep searching. Keep remaining lost and trying to be found.

Keep trying to break the glass and examine what's inside. Gears grind like the notched wheels of a clock, always turning, ticking, triggering and moving. Clocks do not stop at night. Thoughts do not cease to tock.

She'll understand eventually. She'll get it. I'll fall asleep eventually.