Sleeping has always been an issue for me long before I had an overnight job. It took ten years to adjust to a new sleeping routine and it didn’t get any better- it only shifted. Lately, my thoughts just can’t be suppressed. They’ve wandered to the frontal lobe and have carved a cozy home.
I want eye contact. I want compassion. I want laughter, and friendship. I want to wake up in the morning next to someone that I can melt into. I want to feel safe enough to be completely myself. To let my guard down without wondering if I’ve revealed too much. I want the kind of connection where silence doesn’t feel awkward, where conversations don’t feel forced, and where I don’t have to question whether I matter to someone. I want to be considered. To be remembered in the little things. I want to feel real to somebody else. I don’t want to feel second best anymore. Or the bottom of the barrel. I must have been a shit person in another life to keep getting myself tangled up in these situations.
I just want to be loved in a way that doesn’t leave me guessing. And if it’s not in the cards for me, that’s okay, too. But I need the universe to stop dangling carrots.
Maybe that’s what keeps me awake at night. Not necessarily the loneliness itself, but the realization that I’ve spent so much time learning how to live with it that I’ve almost convinced myself it’s all I deserve. I’ve become familiar with settling, with making excuses, with telling myself that wanting more somehow makes me ungrateful for what I already have. But there’s a difference between appreciating my life and admitting that there are parts of it that leave me feeling empty.
And I’m tired of pretending those parts don’t exist.
I don’t want to spend another decade convincing myself that I’m fine with things that quietly break my heart.
I’m beginning to understand that avoiding a difficult truth doesn’t make it disappear. Sometimes it just means carrying it for longer than necessary.
I’m ready for the next step. Not necessarily ready for every challenge, not ready with every answer, and certainly not without fear. I can be afraid of what comes next and still know that I need to take steps forward.