Still can’t seem to get any proper sleep.

And the weird thing is, I am sleeping.

And dreaming. Had some weird dream that seemed to revolve around making homemade donuts earlier. So apparently I now bake in my sleep.

So it’s not a lack of REM time that is the problem. And yet, I don’t feel rested. I feel like no matter how much I sleep, some part of me just plain does not relax.

And when I try to think about it and puzzle it out, I get these hints of some kind of deep terror hiding between the layers of my consciousness. Some part of me is extremely frightened of sleep, or something about sleep, and I think that is what is holding me back and keeping me from getting restful sleep.

So far, I have no idea what that is, although I suspect it has something to do with my sleep apnea. Some part of me realizes that sleep means smothering, more or less, and resists going to sleep out of that fear. And until I can ease that scared animal part of me, I will not get anything like good sleep.

Which means it is probably time for me to use my CPAP machine again, which has been sitting there gathering dust for over a year now, possibly even two years. I may have said otherwise on here before. If I did, I apologize, for that was a lie. I fabricated a story about the Province not paying for it any more and taking it away in order to cover my shame that I have just plain not been using it.

It sits there, accusing me, like my video camera and my MIDI keyboard, saying “Why don’t you use me? I am right here. You could use me right now and maybe make things better for yourself. But you ignore us. Why? What the hell is wrong with you? ”

Good question, Voices Of Inanimate Objects In My Head. Why not? I don’t know. Maybe I just fear change so much that even positive change seems like too big a change to take on. Maybe taking advantage of certain things means opening up a part of me that is full of emotions that I am too scared to deal with.

Maybe even if I won a million dollars, I would end up just sitting here, typing away at this here computer, thinking “I will use that million bucks soon. No need to rush. ”

And in the meantime, the money would just get dusty in a corner. And eventually, I would just stop thinking about it at all, except for the occasional pang of guilt I felt when I looked at the pile.

But hey, easy cure for that : just bury myself in my distractions like usual, and stop thinking about it.

After all, stopping thinking about something which upsets you is always easier than doing something about it. It might not be better, as those neglected things have a way of accumulating over time, but it is always easier, and you always do what is easiest.

Like a liquid seeking the lowest level, you have no choice, or so it seems.

Still, while I might not feel wonderful lately, I do feel like this unrest is serving a greater purpose. I feel like things are in motion within my psyche and that I am building towards another layer of metamorphosis, maybe even my biggest one yet.

I get these hints of a greater kind of solidity within me, like I am reforging myself into something stronger and more coherent, and ridding myself of impurities.

If so, then I am willing to pay the cost. No change comes without pain. I know that I have a deep dead-eyed determination to grow as a person and evolve my way out of the morass in which I live. I know that I am willing to destroy whatever gets in my way and that I am willing to rip out my own heart and stomp it to death if that is what it takes.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.

I am just so damned tired of living in this tiny little cage. And yet part of me thinks maybe the smartest thing to do would be to make peace with the life I lead and enjoy it for what it is instead of constantly roiling against the walls of my prison.

And maybe that is, indeed, the smart thing to do. But as I age, I am increasingly aware of just how futile the constant search for the smart thing to do can be, and how it leads you into traps and illusions and cul-de-sacs of thought that lead you nowhere new, just keep you spinning round and around trying to catch the star at the end of your tail.

Knowing where you should go is futile if you lack the will to get there. Knowing the smart answer is less than futile if it is the wrong answer for you. We cannot expect to just magically become whatever our intellect says we should be.

We have to be who we are, and only then can we reach for something else. After all, you cannot get where you want to go unless you know where you are first, right?

There is a deeply damaged part of me that simply freezes up under certain circumstances, leaving me emotionally paralyzed and completely passive.

Somehow, I want to reach that part of me and soothe it, calm it, tell it everything will be OK and it can stop with the icy injection of paralytic fear now.

The danger has passed, and it is time to live and breath and grow again.

Even just writing that, I can feel the fear in my heart trying to shut me down and say “No! Hide in our hole! Danger! Danger!”

But that is OK. It has to come out of its hole in order to tell me that, and that means I can see it and maybe some day understand it well enough to embrace it, and make it feel safe.

Until then… I will sit on the doorstep of infinity, and wait.