Why can't I sleep still?

So I have this nasty habit of waking up at 2AM, 3:30AM, and/or 4:15ish. I don't know why I wake up at this time. I am not hot, I don't need the restroom. I don't even want to get up. But I toss and turn the rest of the morning until my alarm goes off and then I am so tired I don't want to get out of bed to exercise and I don't want to go to work. This has been going on for weeks now.... I don't know how to make it stop. I don't want to take sleeping pills again.

I seem to wake up and just think. I wish my subconscious could do the thinking in my sleep so I could get some sleep. Isn't that what Freud thought sleeping and dreaming was for, so that you could sort out stuff without being aware of it. So you could address those repressed urges, feelings, thoughts in the safety of the unconscious subconscious.

Well, we will try again tonight. But then tonight I have a reason to wake up. There is going to be a full lunar eclipse. I think they are magnificent! I do love the moon. I have always had this weird irrational thought about the moon.

I have thought this since I was little. It is kind of a comfort thing. I just take the sense that the "man in the moon" is real. Whether I am "talking" to the man in the moon or maybe it is to God through the moon, it is a comfort to know the moon is always changing but with constancy as well... Showing that things change but stay the same in their cycle. I guess I am jealous that there is a "new" moon each month, that the moon gets to start over each month, every 28 days. People have to try harder to become a new person, to start over...

One month! 30 Days, and counting.

So the first 30 days of this 546 day journey has been terrible. There were days that were not so bad as long as I was distracted and around people I care and love. However, in the dark left alone to my thoughts and during most of the day, my thoughts were always focused on the same thing. Maybe I shouldn't keep count, maybe I should mark the supposed end of this journey and just let it happen. Perhaps I keep counting because I am not ready to let go. Perhaps I keep counting so that I don't forget.

I know I partially keep counting for these reasons and also to keep myself grounded in the here and now and to say, yes, it has only been 30 days, but soon I will be able to say it has been a long time when it gets to 90 days, or 100, or 120... I think I also keep counting so that I can tell myself it is okay to still cry. It is okay to still hurt. It is okay that you aren't over it all yet... it has only been 30 days which is only a fraction of the amount of time you spent on your previous journey... it is just this time you must go it alone.

I have to focus on the good things to look forward to in the next 30 days. Like going home this weekend. Seeing my brother's dorm room at college. Las Vegas next weekend. Maybe I will go home for the state fair this year, the weekend after that. I think my cousins may be showing a cow or pigs. I will hopefully begin faculty training and start teaching a class by October. That is a lot of things to look forward to in the next 30 days. More than anything, I am excited to go hiking again on Saturday/Sunday mornings. It is good for the spirit. So it is necessary to focus on those things... to focus on the next 30 days instead of the past 30 days.

Goodbye is always hard

Whether it be a weekend fling, then end of a long visit, an inevitable parting such as death, or the sudden breakup, saying goodbye is hard to do. In fact, the older I get the harder it is to say goodbye.

I just had a great weekend of living in the moment. Priceline.com is my new best friend. Hotels, baseball games, movies. Fancy lunches, fine dinners and random breakfasts. But it all ended with a 2pm flight today and I returned to my now boring and seemingly empty life.

I guess it is a matter of finding something else to look forward to. Well, there is this holiday weekend. Another opportunity to head out of town and visit old friends and make new ones. Until we meet again!