It's the same most every night.

In this way one could say it's a ritual. But I don't do it just for it's own sake. I do it for my sake. I do it for a sense of peace. Do it to survive.

It's my way.

I start when everything is quiet and natural. The lights are out and my covers are drawn. I wait until the pain in my young body subsides, for just a few minutes, and I am at rest. Comfortable, if I even know what that really is anymore, I begin to weave through the proceeding day.

It is a maze and I it's Minotaur warden.

It is all there for me to wade through. All the issues and responsibilities. Joy, pain, mundane states of being. All there for me to sort out. And sort I do. First ridding my mind of all the petty annoyances. The humming and off key singing. The overblown TV melodrama and on-line gaming senseless chatter. The general disarray of everything.

I let go of the stupid little things that burn me up each day.

Then I am free. There in the dark, in the calmative stillness of being, I dig for the truth. I claw at the nature of things around me. I want to know why and how and where. I need to make sure things are cool. That I'm OK and not this ugly, mean, careless person. This lonesome man lamenting the one he lost and neglecting the one he has.

I need to know that's not true and so, each night, I make sure it isn't.

I confirm that I'm still thoughtful and caring and OK. I confirm that I'm still me and I can do this. Much worse has befallen me and this is no problem. None at all.



The truth is: at night, in quietude of my own mind, I bestir my soul. Not without pain. Not without difficulty, but always with gumption. And humility. Remembering that you are just one person goes a long way.


_{sweet dreams}

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