Kaos in the night

I awoke today in the dead of the night. My boyfriend slept soundly beside me (as he always does so well) and I stared into the blackness for what seemed like eternity. As it turned out, eternity was 2 hours, and I drifted off sometime before 4am. As I lay there, I wondered what had woken me. I felt so awake that I could have risen and gone about my day. If I was at my own place and not at my partners then perhaps I would have gotten up to find something to do. Instead I tossed and turned and questioned why the knot in my stomach tightened with every passing minute. I had an acute sense of dread, like I had missed something, that I had overlooked something critical. My mind travelled to the daylight, of my Monday back at work, of everything that I had to do to catch up, of a uni assignment that was impending, and social obligations I had to keep. I felt my stomach knot in such a way that I had to curl up on my side. And there it was…. why was I so anxious in the middle of the night? My life. That’s why.

So come the morning of my Monday, with a gently throbbing headache, and a nauseas feeling in my stomach. The same which I had felt all week.
I was exhausted, and angry at myself for not sleeping through the night. As I travelled to work, each moment I thought of the things I had to do came with a tightening in my chest. And that’s what stress feels like to me. I know it when I am powering away at work and trying to meet a deadline and the adrenaline rushes and my heart rate jumps. A little bit of stress is good for me, in fact. But there was no deadline, no overdue tasks, it was 9am on a Monday, what had my weekend given me? Very little it seems. Could I handle this feeling for another 5 days?

Its seems in life we are presented with enough impossibilities to burden the strongest of souls, that the wayward path leads astray the most intrepid explorers, and that the experienced heart has a greater memory of its pain and conflict than the a superior intellect.
It also seems that the weakest minds desire the simplest pleasures, the softest dispositions engage with the kindest people, and the youngest hearts love the hardest.
So what do I desire to be? Strong, intrepid, and superior, or weak minded, soft, and young? It appears to me that the stronger you are, the more you choose to carry, and those who know their limitations move through their life with ease.
I don’t want to be strong, because I will infinitely pile myself with weight. I do not wish to be intrepid, because I do not want to lose my way, and I do not want to love, because my heart will remember the pain more everlasting than its joy.

This is self deprecating and I understand this. Of course it is considerably more noble to have strength of character, but isnt it more feasible to live an uncomplicated life without this? Sometimes I want the easy trail without the winding and bumps and hills and ruts. Is that selfish?

“Perhaps our eyes need to be washed by our tears once in a while, so that we can see Life with a clearer view again.”