Today I have connected some dots. Some of the star dust dots that we are all made of and that I have always wanted to physically feel in my blood and in my skin. I never liked to sleep a whole lot. Not that I didn’t like sleeping, just that I loved to go to bed late, when no one else was up in the house and when I felt like I was the last person left in the world – the last person awake to feel it. The last to appreciate its quiet and stillness and beauty. I was an explorer in uncharted territory about to discover al the secrets of the universe. I was about to feel the star dust. I loved waking up early to start the day, so I had time to get shit done. I despised naps and never took them, and if I happened across one accidentally I was pissed that I wasted the time and would almost always wake up with a headache and a groggy disposition. Then I slowly, over time, slipped into this weird state of sleepiness. Like I couldn’t understand how I had gotten so old so quickly and needed all this sleep all of the sudden. How had I used to go to bed at 3 am only to wake up at 6:30 or 7 and not necessarily jump out of bed, but certainly not dawdle in it. I’ve had a few scattered months over this past six or seven years of sleepiness where I had this energy. To wake up at 5:30, or better yet 5:15 even, to burn some calories on the elliptical, and better yet do an interval workout too, so I could kill 700 nasty calories before I had breakfast and headed to work. Now I recognize those months as manic periods before the fall. This past week or so I have found I am dreaming again, a lot. I haven’t in so long it’s strange to stir several times a night from one dream to enter another. I admitted – out loud and everything –  just yesterday – that I don’t like sleeping much anymore. I just toss and turn, and I miss being physically and mentally awake with my love – even though we literally spend every waking moment together. I can’t get comfortable anymore, I’ve always been a side or back sleeper and now I have no idea what I’m doing but I think I’m turning into one of those….a stomach sleeper. I have gone to sleep later and later to read or watch or absorb or create new ideas and characters and lives to live. I wake up later then I used to but not by much and lingering in bed is a new joy because it is the first few minutes of the day and I get my love all to myself and the world still feels asleep outside and it is just us figuring out what lay ahead for us. Today and forever. I used to hear and see and feel the potential that people saw in me. I loved it. I totally thought that even though I was not attractive – that maybe that meant I could become deep and a philanthropist and change the world for the better and I would be somebody. It equally excited and scared me because I always feared in the back of my mind that I was sure to disappoint them all. Then that faded and I started to see only the black holes that I was and that my life had become and all the things I had screwed up and all the ways I had disappointed. I did not deserve anything I had, I have seen all the good and potential and beauty and love in everyone around me but I kept them at arm’s length. I have never trusted anyone of them enough to be really truly honest. I don’t know that I know who I am to be honest about – but I finally admitted last week – out loud and everything – that my parents divorcing when I was so young and the way that it went down, left me with abandonment issues and I’ve never been able to give myself to anyone the way that they deserved – because I was sure they would leave anyway. I’ve been waiting for years for everyone to figure out what a piece of shit I am and finally just give up on me so I could drift away into the black holes. Now, I don’t know that I see the potential I used to feel so strongly, but I don’t really care. I just care that I am seeing all of this more clearly then I ever have before. I care that I can admit all of this tar out loud to my love for the first time – and he still loves me. I just care that the black holes are closing in on themselves and not me. I am still terrified of them. Yesterday I was so excited and bubbly and talkative and acting like I haven’t in so long that I don’t remember that I have ever acted like that – and I was sure it meant I was just in an up swing – sure to be followed by a down. But that’s ok, because I have realized that I need to start to forgive myself soon before I crush myself into oblivion. I am only thirty. I still have a lot of life ahead and that really isn’t as ominous as it always used to feel. Like a weight around my neck.