I’m Beautiful Like Me.

I hate dreaming. Have I mentioned that before? Well, I do. I feel sorta disconnected from myself and as though I have absolutely no control. Even if the stuff of dreams is “good.” But the last two nights, I have had bad dreams.

I can’t even recall what the dream from the night before last was about anymore, but I remember waking and being quite… hell, I don’t even know the right word. That would very likely be from me staying awake ’til damn near 6am this morning and waking 4 hours later from yet another nightmare. All I remember of this morning’s dream is my brother. First thing I did after brushing my teeth this morning was to call him. He didn’t answer. But - thankfully - he did just call back. I didn’t mention the dream, as we got into a bit of a tiff about two weeks ago and he sounded very grumpy. We haven’t yet made truce.

He says we suffer from Irish Alzheimer’s: forget everything but the grudge. This is very often true (especially in his case), but I’m pretty good at - at the very least - making an effort to make peace. So, I just said to him, “It’s a nice day to start again.” He responded in kind.

All the same, I still feel the residuals of the nightmare clinging to my foggy brain. I figure I’ll hit the sack again in an hour or two. With any luck, I will be blissfully dream-free.

Do you ever feel like you wish you could turn off the crazy?

I recently took up listening to meditative sounds at night. I was especially fond of the ocean tides one. The first couple of nights, I lay there with my eyes closed and imagined myself lying on a deserted beach (ha!) somewhere, the fan perfectly playing into my fantasy by mimicking the ocean breeze. After a couple of nights, the incessant sound of the surf coming in and out made me extremely uncomfortable. I found myself thinking on how tired the ocean must feel, constantly moving, beating the shore. I don’t know if I’ll ever think of the ocean the same again.

My mom would vehemently deny passing the crazy to us kids, but it was her. It was her folks before her and theirs before them. Dad’s side is crazy, too, but it’s a different kinda crazy altogether. The crazy I’m referring to is the cursed obsessing. Good ol’ OCD. Mom’s been known to scratch until she bleeds when she’s under a mountain of stress. Big Brother I has escaped to unknown and seemingly unreachable realms of books and internets fantasies. Big Rob, well, damn I don’t have enough time to dream up appropriate metaphors for his crazy. But I identify with it because it’s my kinda crazy, too - only younger and slightly less masculine than his. It’s the kinda crazy that consumes. I find myself feeling profoundly guilty knowing that my children will very likely inherit the crazy from me.

My stomach is in knots. I feel simultaneously relieved and panicky over the girl’s impending departure. I really, really, really need a break from her. But I’m deeply afraid that it will come at a price that I ought not need to pay. A price that she ought not need to pay. I’m angry - furious even - with the x for putting the both of us in such a fine predicament. It’s the sickness that I cannot run from, a sickness that infected me and still poisons me. That particular crazy can be squarely attributed to both parents. You tell yourself, “Self, you are not a child any more. You are no one’s victim unless you allow it.” But the truth is that it’s someone’s fault that it’s there. I was just a kid, y’know. Just like she is. She’s just a kid. She deserves to be a kid. She deserves to not have this weight put upon her as he’s haphazardly thrown her way. To steal Big Rob’s line - I’m poking myself in the eye with a stick wondering how much responsibility is mine for this weight carelessly tossed at Joy. Now there’s a metaphor for my ass: This weight carelessly tossed at Joy…

And Buddha. Man oh man oh man. Up since 9am, no nap at all today and didn’t get him to sleep until almost 1:30am. Seriously, I need someone to please turn down the volume on crazy. My earlier post got me to thinking on Husband and how it was in the act of writing that his stresses became most apparent to me. I wanted to tell him as much over the telephone when he called from work tonight, but I couldn’t find that place, the words or the tone, what with all the squawking from the boy. I’m one of those people that has amazingly low blood-pressure. I could smoke, go for a jog and get into an argument at the same time and it’d be low. But when that boy cries, it skyrockets and causes me to have incredibly painful headaches. Very hard to focus on much of anything, least of all something you are still struggling to understand so’s to explain to another.

Funny that I chose these names for these kids. I think somewhere deeeeeeeep down inside of me, I know some wisdom - or great joke - that the rest of me isn’t in on.

And the low blood-pressure is totally deceptive. I have the hardest time relaxing. I feel all wound up tight inside. I’m tense. I don’t know where to put it. I don’t know how to let it go. I want to let it go, but I don’t know how. Doing the things I love best works from time to time, but I find myself avoiding those things lately because I cannot tolerate interruptions. That’s pretty fuckin’ crazy right there. Whose life doesn’t have interruptions? Hmmm. Maybe I’m onto something. In any case, I’m really tired and hope that I can get to sleep fairly easily tonight. Self-medicating with Tylenol PM is helpful sometimes.