proteanme

I think I slept maybe two hours last night. It’s been a hard year for me for getting to and staying asleep, which is weird because all my life I’ve been a sound sleeper. I think turning down the volume on so much external stimulation and really experiencing my mind and heart is taking some adjusting to. Last night my mind was like a broken record replaying this bit of information that I discovered accidentally about this girl I like. It was a battle of trying to chant down the spinning out in my head by counting backwards and just spinning out. Spinning out won; it almost always does. I likely should have gotten up and put on my headphones and just drawn some, but I kept thinking I would tire myself out. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I was just not wanting to take care of myself around spinning out.

When I finally fell asleep for about an hour at 2am I had these sad dreams. In one dream I was getting it on with a girl that I know for sure I don’t want to get it on with and it was so detailed and so uncomfortable and so not what I wanna do that I remember thinking what the fuck am I doing, man and then feeling relieved when it ended and that dream faded into an art gallery scene, all quiet and stark. The gallery was having a photography show. For some reason I remember that the walls appeared almost yellow in color, yellow like an old newspaper fading. I was looking at some photos taken by this girl I do like. The same girl I talk about here every now and then. I came up on a photo that I somehow knew was recent. It was of the girl and this butch laying on a bed facing each other; the butch’es back was to camera, but and this girl, the one I like, she was resting her head over her butch’es shoulder and looking into the camera. The photo had a caption I can’t remember, but it was something like “me and the bare arm of my butch.” As I stood looking at the the photo it started to enlarge itself; I woke up before it got big enough that I could make out the details of this girl’s face.

I dunno if what woke me up was not wanting to see how this girl looks, feeling so safe and open with someone else, or all the ruckus from the thunder and lightening at play outside my windows. Maybe some of both. But I got up and sat on my couch and bared witness to nature’s show – a real midwestern thunderstorm complete with rolling booms, lighting flashes and a big loud downpour. It was comforting but at the same time it nearly broke me, as thunderstorms remind me how far away I am from things I love, like home, and things I long for.