Tired, Tired, Tired

(106/365) Tired but can’t sleep (Photo credit: Sarah G…)

I can’t watch the news anymore; even when I just glance at the news on the computer, I know the world is a scary place, a terrible place.  The fear is in my stomach first, like raw clenching tentacles and the tightness inside me like an army of multi-colored stretched rubber bands.  I feel anxious, I see it reflected in my own eyes, fear, insecurity, doubt. Yes, the world is a bad place and many dreadful things happen. I also take other people’s pain and clutch it in my arms, like a hug surrounding a wounded child.

I can list a number of my most awful days in a second, like rapid-fire stock market trading but when I try to conjure up incredibly good days, I have to think, hard. The usual, marriage and childbirth come up, of course, but really, what was the last golden day I had that was out of the ordinary?  I stop to think. Tonight, I can’t come up with anything; my brain has been taken over by fear and pain.

I know I am too sensitive but it sticks with me like a second skin; sometimes I invent future nightmares. I know I shouldn’t do that and I try to stop myself  but there are times when I feel overwhelmed. It passes, I know, but while it happens, I forget.

My legs, from Fibromyalgia tonight are aching, painful, much more than usual. Fibromyalgia is eating up my world slowly but aggressively. New symptoms, tingling and numbness of my hands and feet, leg pain, imbalance, nerve pain too. It wasn’t supposed to get worse, that’s what the doctor told me, or did I dream that? I knew it wouldn’t get better and I accepted that easily but today is so much more painful than other days. I want the pain to end and drown in sleep. Tonight, I want to curl up and try to find a comfortable position and just lay here in the dark. I asked my husband to come upstairs to kiss me good-night, I haven’t done that in many years; his tender kiss on my forehead reassuring.

I don’t want conversation or to watch television, I don’t want to read a morbid book or even a funny book and I don’t want to listen to music which usually calms my soul. I just want to stay still in the dark and breathe evenly and not hurt. This pain is severe; I never take pain medication but tonight I may have to grope for a pill from an outdated prescription.  I don’t really want to take it, it’s a false reading of tortured limbs but tonight, but tonight I need a break.

A break from physical and emotional pain, let me lie here and fall asleep with my dog sleeping on my foot and my warm diet root beer by my side. Let me forget the worry and the fear and the pain. “I don’t want to fight,” I said, to my sister online; I don’t want to waste the little energy I have on our frequent disagreements. Fighting is not the answer and not the solution. This stress on me is unnecessary and I want it to end, there is no room in my life for painful interactions. Whatever it takes, I promise to try to do it because I want peace between us, even if sometimes, it is artificial.

Let me stay in my little corner tonight, huddled on one side and let me sleep, just let me sleep.