"Just like a child, you make me smile when you care for me..."

I fought the inclination to come and write at 2 A.M. And then at 3. And then at 4. And god knows how many times in-between. Mainly, because I couldn't see the value of coming to write, "I am not sleeping." There were other things to write, but I was convinced that to pursue them in vivid thought would just cause me to be further awake.

"You go crazy again!"

It was a fun night out. Never what I expect. But fun. I chose songs and had them sung to me and sang along. And I reverted to my old standard Campari soda for a change. It is bitter and sweet. I remember that.

I spent so many hours in bed, conscious of the fact that I was awake -- rebellious about it. I couldn't get comfortable. I couldn't find comfort. I couldn't keep my mind from racing. I haven't gone through it for a long time. And I don't have fond recollections of the recent time when I did.

I penalize myself for it. I am living someone else's life in my pre-sleep mind. I am rehearsing the words and reliving the moments and believing I know what it all means and what it has been like each step of the way.

Sometimes, I am favored with a brief moment of clarity. I realize -- or I discover -- that things aren't always as they seem. Or that things aren't always portrayed as they are. Even to close friends and confidantes. The joy I project, the satisfaction I assume, the forgetting I believe in -- they are not necessarily real or true or there. That provides me with some comfort. And I should learn to factor it in to my reckless musings. I should learn to talk myself down from that ledge. To slow my heart rate. To bring the flush down from my cheeks. To halt my limbs in their trembling. I should catalogue the formula for that salvation. I am acceptance now. I am able to be.

So many things I have told myself I could bear. So many times I have reassured myself, "You can do this." It hasn't made things any easier or more sure.

"It's a question of not letting what we've built up crumble to dust..."

When I loved the song A Question of Lust in high school, it was romantic and meaningful to me. But I wonder what I was actually feeling or who I could have possibly been feeling it for. As much as the music of my adolescence still speaks to me now, I am often amused and curious about the way it once moved me. Or how it could have. When I was a nervous young girl who knew nothing of love and wondered if she ever would.

The more I learn, the more I cherish a certain level of ignorance.