It’s 3am and I’m wide awake.

I occasionally find myself anxious at night. Sometimes it’s a general anxiety not centered on specific thoughts. Just an inexplicable racing heartbeat and pressure in the chest.

Other times the anxiety is existential, related to the state of the country and the world. 

And on rare occasion it’s about an upcoming interaction or event.

Tonight, it’s none of those.

—

I did a meditation exercise not too long ago, centered around all the different aspects or versions of oneself. 

You imagine each part of you, independently personified, all in a room together… a room as big as it needs to be. 

They’re forming a loose circle, and in the center of the circle, there’s a microphone.

The selves take their time, but after a few minutes, one of them walks up to that microphone. Who is it? What part of you has something that needs to be said?

For me, tonight, it’s my 22 year old self. A person with very different values than the ones I hold now. 

He’s judging me today. He thinks I’ve lost the thread. Chased the wrong rabbits. Mixed my metaphors.

He’s worried and afraid and angry with me. He wants to wake up tomorrow and for it to be 2006 again. To savor what was always destined to be fleeting. 

But what he wants to say most of all tonight is, “I hope you’ll be okay.”

—

I’m really intrigued by the concept of thinking errors, and their relationship with anxiety. The one on my mind now is catastrophizing. (My phone doesn’t think that’s a real word, does that mean the world is ending?)

I suppose being highly attuned to risk makes me prone to the occasional catastrophic thought. But sometimes, the worst times, those thoughts turn out to be right.

And ignoring them feels like living in denial. So what’s worse? 

—

I don’t know why I write here, of all places. This could be easily be written in my Notes app. But putting it online makes it feel more real, even if it isn’t read. 

It’s a diary without a lock.

current mood: spiraling

current music: inzo – overthinker