Many nights I have a difficult time getting to sleep. Actually since I deployed it has been every night. Part of it is because I got used to a different times schedule and part because I didn't adjust to the time difference and part because I can't have a few beers to help on nights I just can't sleep. My mind runs a hundred miles an hour and almost never stops. My heart goes even faster. This is the root of the problem. It is not too much caffeine or PTSD it is that too much goes on in me. This has been true since I was a young child. Eventually I got to the point where I would be worn out nearly every day and could go right to sleep. I have lived that way for most of 14 years. Now I find myself mentally exhausted but not physically and my mind is awake once the day has passed. So I can not sleep. The alcohol, my beers before bed, was used to quiet my mind and relax me so that I could sleep. I didn't need it but it helped and I enjoyed having a few. My heart and mind just think and feel too fast.
I have know this for some time but I realized a little more tonight. I was wondering why it is when things grow quiet that my mind races so much. Then I realized that my mind was trying to interpret and sort out what my heart was saying, feeling. My heart always feels like a jumble because there is so much there. It is like if you took a thousand different colors and splattered them on a pallet and started to spin it around. The colors become a blur and they mix and you can not tell one from another unless you put it in slow motion and concentrate on them. After a while you can pick out some of the feelings, memories, thoughts or dreams and explore them. It is difficult to focus on just one color or piece in a turning kaleidescope but if you can it is amazing to see what shapes it can take and help produce.
Silent nights, when no one is awake or around, when the TV is off when the distractions are gone the quiet takes on the sound of a symphony orchestra, a rock band or sometimes a train wreck. The sound is not audible but it is heard as loud as blaring speakers at a concert. The silence becomes loud with the echoes of the heart and mind. It is the silence that I find the most deafening. The noise and distractions help dampen the noise within.
Every night seems to be silent. I guess it is good. I have had some time to explore some of what is going on in my heart and mind. I have learned a lot but still have so much I haven't figured out. It is not because I can't work it out but because I can't focus on those colors or haven't gotten to them yet. I suppose eventually I will get to them but some seem elusive. Something like they don't want to be understood or perhaps that I am not ready to understand them yet. Maybe I am not supposed to be able to focus on them yet or I am not in a place or haven't grown enough to be able to.
Many times I am afraid of what I might find in those moments of silence. I have found things out about myself that I didn't like. I have thought about times, memories that hurt and were not pleasant. Sometimes I see something about the future. Things that are going to be, that might be and things that I might hope for but will never be. I see things that I would hope for or wish for but I don't have the time to do them all. I see things that might have been but were lost because I squandered my time and opportunities. I see the fires I have escaped and others I created. I also see things hoped for and never could have been for all my time and might.
I see all of these things and I think that after the few years I have lived I am afraid of my potential, afraid of hope and dreams. I have lost the things in life that I have hoped for the most. I have been hurt and I have failed and disappointed myself. I find more of this then victories. Perhaps I am afraid of more than loss but also of getting what I hope for. I'm not sure what I would do if I had dreams come true. Exploring this pallet of color is difficult and I am afraid every time I do.
Tonight I am having a hard time focusing. The colors are just an explosion of color a collage of emotion, memory, dreams, ideas and possibilities. I am trapped in the whirlwind of my heart and it's music is loud tonight. It doesn't sound like a joyful song but it does have hope. My heart is restless, another constant problem. I think it will be until I find someone who can calm it. Deafening silent nights.
