A Month of Blogs - What Keeps You Up At Night?

What Keeps You Up At Night?

Submitted by Anonymous.


As a writer who seems to have hit a low point in creativity and / or just getting off my ass and writing, I signed myself up to write 31 blog posts during October - one a day - on any subjects that are suggested to me. The only rules for suggestions are that they can't be anything that involve me having to take on a particular viewpoint (so no "Why I Hate Twilight" or "Why Rock Music is the Best Music") - this isn't debating class, and right now I'm not interested in trying to argue something that I may or may not agree with. Anything else goes - it can be a specific subject or a broad one, one that I've written about in the past or something new that will need research. If you're interested in playing along, you can leave a comment here, or email me at thenordicalien@gmail.com. (I'll try and remember to check there, honest!)


I could have written this post in a number of ways. I might do a part 2. And 3. But for now, I decided to play it straight.

Truth is, I don't know everything that keeps me up. Probably it's partially my diet - I've noticed that when I only eat fresh foods with no preservatives, I sleep better. It's partially pain - if I exercise I sleep better. It's partially guilt at my parasitic lifestyle - if I put in a good day's manual labour, I sleep better.

Mostly it's stupid shit. Like worrying.

I saved a kid today. At least I think I did. I was walking through town on my way to the bank, and this kid on a tricycle sped out in front of me. I guess he was 2 or 3. Maybe 4. Hell, he could have been 5 - I'm not good at guessing kids' ages. It was a little plastic trike, not a proper one, so probably not as old as 5. He sure could pedal though. I saw him out of the corner of my eye, but was hurrying to get to the bank, so I wasn't really concentrating on him until I heard someone screech, "Jaden!" which caught my attention - Jaden is my nephew's name, and most people are particularly attuned to the names of their friends and family. Speedy Gonzales - apparently Jaden - rode right in front of me and onto the road, into the path of an oncoming car. The main road in town is busy most of the time, and this was after-school traffic.

I was there. The shout had caught my attention well enough. He was fine. I was fine.

I have been worrying all afternoon about how he wouldn't have been fine if things had turned out differently.

Dr chris and I have been over this odd habit of mine many times, and never quite managed to solve it. I don't remember if it has a particular name - he refers to it as a form of transference, similar to the way that when crises happen in my life I handle them gracefully...and then later fall apart or throw a tantrum because a date gets cancelled or someone gives me the wrong soda at the movies. (For the record, I'm fairly easy-going most of the time, and not at all the type of person to throw tantrums, let alone about such anodyne things.) The lay explanation Doc gave me for this is that the energy and stress from crisis after crisis builds up, but because I've spent a lifetime handling some pretty awful situations and acting like the grown-up who holds everything together, I sort of transfer the emotion from the things I can't control (death, illness, bankruptcy, prison) into things that aren't really that important and are therefore safe to fall apart about. TL;DR - I underreact to important shit and then overreact to unimportant shit as a way of compensating.

Supposedly this odd worrying habit of mine is related to this in some way, but we've never been able to rid me of it, only to control it most of the time.

I don't worry about the future. Not much, anyway. The future will happen whether I'm ready for it or not. Instead, I worry about the past. I worry about the things that didn't happen. I worry about Q and E - my SEALs - getting shot and killed while on one of those missions that they can't tell me about. I worry about B, my ex-Marine friend, getting blown up by a landmine during his tour in the Middle East. I worry about my Kurdish friend S being victimized as a child because she's a woman, or my Chinese friend L being aborted or left on the street because her parents wanted a boy. I worry about D, my high-school love, overdosing on drugs when he felt so alienated from the rest of the world, or K committing suicide because of his many traumas. I worry about the stroke that didn't kill my Dad and the ovarian cyst that my Mom had that didn't turn out to be cancer.

None of this happened. Q and E and B are all alive, not currently serving in the military, and in possession of all body parts. I have no idea if S was ever victimized as a kid, but she's grown into an amazingly strong, confident, intelligent woman who takes crap from nobody and still maintains a compassionate heart, and I'm honoured and humbled to call her a friend. L's parents love her more than life itself and would not give her up for anything in the world. D channeled his teenage pain into an extraordinary musical skill, and has now made a name for himself in the trance world, and seems content with life. K did go through a rough period, and still does, but he's alive and kicking and surrounded by those who love him. My Dad is recovering and my Mom is cancer-free and always has been.

I worry about them nonetheless.

And today I worry about what would have happened if I took an earlier bus, or if I had finally signed up for the internet banking that my ex has been telling me to do, or if I'd been wearing high heels and been unable to move quickly, or if the kid hadn't shared a name with my nephew and I'd ignored his mother yelling for him.

Those things didn't happen. You can tell me, but you were there. It doesn't help. I don't know why. Dr Chris doesn't know why either.

And that's what keeps me up, at least for tonight.


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