I never gently fall to sleep. I try and set my mind to conjure happy memories. I reckon this is what I might look like whilst I dream. Hair tousled, lips slightly opened. I see myself slightly grainy. I am between two universes--one where I wish I could remain and one where my body lies. Some would say it would be hell to live in a memory. But what happens if your present is far more painful? Would YOU sleep, perchance to dream?

Dear Ethers, 

Have you ever had that empty feeling in your chest?  You know it.  The one where you breathe in and there feels like a huge hole and then a slight shiver of anxiety and pain.  This is exactly what I’ve been experiencing lately.  And I’ve looked at my last posts and realized that they have been so negative and I’m scared that they’re depressing you.  This is what always happens to me.  I make friends because I seem effusive and happy.  But as time roles on and life happens, I start to reveal myself and people get turned off by the real me.  The me that is a depressive.  A glass half-empty girl.  The scared, nail-biting to cover her face for protection, sleep all day, cry at night, girl who might look good on the outside but is crumbling on the inside.  See, I’ve never written a journal—especially a public one.  So, I don’t know what’s going to happen.  Will you all go away?  Or, in some sad, miserable way, does this bring you closer to me because either misery loves company or you feel sorry for me?   

Every night before I go to bed, I close my eyes and I try to conjure happy moments to try and calm myself.  I dream about things like the first time I met English gent and bought him a giant topiary (about 5 feet tall) I schlepped home from Columbia Road Market (on the tube) to surprise him.  He still gave me butterflies then.  I visualize me buttoning up my dad’s white shirt under his tux before he went to the Emmy’s.  He swore he wouldn’t win but I bought him a “No Fear” brand shirt that said “If you can’t win don’t play” that he wore underneath his fancy button down.  And all I hear is the booming sound when they announced his name while my brother and I were sitting in the audience that evening.  He let me carry the statue all night.  I dream of when I was a ballerina and got a lead part.  We were poor but my mom saved every penny and bought me the expensive pink tulle dress that I needed to perform and I swore to myself that I would dance my heart out that night and prove to her it was worth every cent. I still have that little pink dress in my closet—I never stored it because it reminded me to be humble.  I remember not wanting to read the last pages of “Gone With The Wind” because I didn’t want to lose Scarlett.  And that I left that damned book with 3 pages in it for a year before I had the heart to finish it.  And when I did, boy did I cry.  

Life is full of memories.  We all have them don’t we?  But that’s my point.  We are all so complicated.  Everyone has a story.  And we all love to hear the good ones.  But it’s when they turn ugly—we flee.  So when I lay in bed at night, I imagine being that girl with all the good stories to tell.  I dream of being only in the good moments and cutting away all of the ugly patches in my life.   Yes, I do take anti-anxiety medication to help lull me away.  To take away the ache.  How very sad.  I’m a broken machine that needs pills to fix it.  You know, I know so many people who are so happy with their lives.  And they never wanted for much.  They are in normal jobs, making normal money married to an everyday Joe.  Why couldn’t I want that?  Why did I have to want the world?  Why did I have to be a dreamer? What comes with dreams are risks, pain and loss.  

Ethers.  I want to run.  Bolt. Hide. Fade away.  Because then nothing new could hurt me and I could just cut away the shit and close my eyes everyday and I wouldn’t have to live in my dreams.  I relate to Scarlett when she said to Rhett “Where shall I go, what shall I do?” Because I don’t have anywhere to go AND I don’t know what to do.  And we all know what he answers….the famous line, “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.”  And then he walks in the fog.  But do you remember what she says?  “I’ll think of it all tomorrow….after all, tomorrow is another day.”  Yes, tomorrow IS another day…………but the nightmare is a perpetual tomorrow, AND tomorrow AND tomorrow…and the the fear of nobody left TO genuinely give a damn.

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365