Brace yourselves if you decide to read this. My mood has been bad this evening, and now with finding myself unable to sleep again, it might not be pretty.
Not being able to sleep sucks.
Sometimes I am able to feel peaceful and thankful about it--a quiet time in the day to pray and reflect and think.
Sometimes it comes in quite handy that I seem to require less sleep than the average human being.
Sometimes it just sucks.
Awake, alone with a head full of swirling thoughts. Augh. Rehearsing the lines of an email I should write. What is this bump on my chin? Mentally checking items off my to-do list from today. Why did I wear these pajamas? Adding to my to-do list for tomorrow. Looking at the painting I can see through shadows on the wall, wondering what is the purpose of art? Wondering what the purpose of anything is.
Swirling thoughts. Piles of thoughts. Sometimes the same ones cycle through again and again.
Augh.
As I was driving home from my last Hindi class today, I was thinking about how I just cannot get over my hatred of doing things wrong and how that holds me back. In this case, I really need to get over it and practice speaking. Inherent to the idea of "practice" seems to be that it is not a perfected performance. My Hindi teacher would say so many times, "Don't hesitate. Just say it, and I'll correct it if it's wrong." What?! Do something that might be wrong?! I hate being wrong, and I don't like being corrected! Where does this horrifying fear of failure come from? The logical part of me knows that the world will not implode on account of a few wrong Hindi words coming out of my mouth, but the prideful part of me can't bear the thought of "failing" at something, however small or momentary that thing may be.
Pride sucks.
This need for perfection is arrogant, and it is heavy. It is horrible to constantly feel that I don't meet my expectations for myself. How can I? There is always more I "should" do or "should" know or a way I "should" do something better. Only God is perfect, and I am not Him. Why doesn't that sink in to my thick head to walk in grace and stop striving for perfection, which I think saddens Him, maybe even angers Him at the arrogance of thinking I could ever reach perfection. Then that leads me to be frustrated that I have not yet learned to accept my imperfections and my humanity. I've known this struggle, and I've laid it down so many times, so I chastise myself for picking it back up again. Why can't I get this right? (A not-so-clever "righteous" disguise for my perfectionism.)
Perfectionism sucks.
John tells me that I am very good at self-loathing for not meeting my own impossible standards. He knows how much I like to be good at things. :)
Because he knows that, just to mess with me sometimes, he tells me that I suck at sleeping.
2 comments:
John's assessment of your not sleeping makes me laugh. :-)
I know what you mean about hating to practice--when I was in band, I could never practice my flute anywhere anyone could hear me. In fact, I couldn't even play solos--I would only play in a big group, where my mistakes couldn't be picked out. Needless to say, I never got very good, nor would anyone have known it if I did.
As for your sleeping, I know it is frustrating--but hey, here's something to make you feel better. In all the parenting books I have, I read that one cause of rough sleeping in kids is high intelligence. Maybe it's the same for grownups! Oops, did I feed your pride? ;-)
My sister Erin said "I am not good at putting myself to bed." Ha ha, I totally relate to that. I wish you were able to fall asleep better... but I hear that your worst trials become your greatest asset...
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