I want to feel alive.
I want to feel like me again.
I want to live my life.
I want to feel wanted.
I want to feel needed.
I want to figure out my purpose.
I need to find myself.
--- via Issa Colmenares (FeelTheGasm 2010)
I can't sleep.
Yes. I don't know if this is a perennial problem which normally occurs among college students, but it's frustrating how I lie down in exhaustion, close my eyes and shut myself out from the world for at least a few hours, only to feel that I'm still awake and conscious. Not that I don't want to be awake and conscious (in other words, alive). However, sleep is the vertex between life and death: one gets to still have life, but consciousness is out of the equation.
Ah, I don't know.
I'm having a hard time putting myself in a position of "peace" and "ease of mind". I'm so used to keeping my guard up, what with all the things I try so hard to protect and keep in hiding, that I'm afraid of the feeling of letting it down and loosening up. It already reached the breaking point when I was (silently) panicking upon feeling the effects of the relaxation exercise that one of the guidance counselors in school has taught me. Aware of this psychosomatic experience, one of many others, I panicked even more, and that, my friends, just made things worse.
*********
Anton (my boyfriend) and I met up earlier (which is technically yesterday with respect to the time), and being the emotional-dramatic (not in a good way)-crappy person I was at the moment, I was ranting erratically, with no sense of coherence. His advice ranged from offering suggestions to tackle the problem(s) up front to suggesting that I regularly visit the guidance counselor, to simply saying, "Ikaw na bahala diyan. Family dynamics niyo na yan, wala akong masasabi diyan." (I leave you to deal with that. That's your family's dynamics, and I've no commentary on the matter). When my rants shifted to me admitting to my severe case of mental conflicts, he finally told me, "Don't confine yourself in your mind. You're pulling me down with you. You're reminding me of who I once was."
At that moment, I regretted even telling him a peep about everything that happened to me the other night. Not because of his reaction per se, but because I hate the feeling of affecting someone negatively due to the things I confide in him/her about.
It is at times like these when I wish I was good at pretending I was okay. I wish I wasn't so vocal about my emotions. I wish I knew how to conceal how I feel as I ponder on things. If only I knew how to shut up...
Before, it would always be easy for me to just run my mouth about everything that happens to me. For two years, I've been submerged into an environment where one can just spill her guts out and those around would actually want you to open up no matter how toxic the revelations. So imagine how spontaneously I would speak up about how I feel and what I think about things. I had no awareness about tact in speech or any of that sort, mainly because it wasn't an issue there. The rule of thumb then was: "You wanna say something, you say it, say it loud and proud."
The habit carried on indefinitely, into different situations and with different personalities. At first, it wasn't so bad, but then... let's just say that it got a little overboard. Long story short: through my tactlessness, I've catalyzed a rather huge conflict between two people who mean a lot to me, and I've instilled fear into one of my friends, to the disadvantage of another friend. Even if, in the practical angle, I can't fully blame myself for the damage done, I still can't help it. True enough,
"IT'S THE 'WHAT-IF'S' THAT HURTS THE MOST."
Knowing how damaging my words have become to some people, I now have this fear of being as open as I once was. This is how regret takes its toll on me; I refuse to make the same mistake again once I've committed it, and that instinctive resolution to deal with things in that way can reach a point of downright irrationality. If my mouth is the reason behind all this, then I'll tell myself--force myself, even--to shut up. If my emotions are the root of all the drama, then I'll do my best to be stoic and nonchalant the next time around. Call it masochism, but I'd rather take everything on myself than let other people suffer from my misdeeds, no matter how trivial.
Now that I think about it, I guess it's my over-magnification of triviality combined with this "I won't do it again" resolution instinct that's causing all this to happen. "All of this" herein means all the neurotic paranoia, complicated thoughts and everything that lies in that banana of a domain.
Great. So, how do I go about eliminating that from my system? How do I diminish my tendencies to this?
I'd love to figure that out as I type, but I feel the insomnia wearing off.
Good night. :)
P.S. I love how blogging is a healthy alternative to sleeping pills... at least for me. Hahaha! :D
