"For it is only insomnia..."

"For it is only insomnia, many must have it."

I'm not a huge fan of Hemingway's novel-length fiction.
I'm also rarely a fan of short stories/fiction.
Yet, the short story is where Hemingway shines

A Clean, Well-lighted Place is my favorite short work of all time.

I hit some meetings yesterday after hitting the gym but it wasn't enough to avoid my own mind and its pitfalls.
I do what I can to get out of my own head and kick it with a long-time friend of mine.
We hit up a spot full of younger people and I don't feel the obsession to drink but rather soak in the people and the energy and the youth of it.
My license to get ill has been revoked so I just make conversation and observe for the most part.

My boy heads home because he has work early in the adult world.
I call my girl and talk to her and complain for a bit then talk to her until she's sleepy.
I head to my work and bullshit with some people I know. Again, I'm not tempted to drink. It's honestly not even something I consider.
As is usual, guys who know I train/fight/whatever want to talk to me about it and the fights they've been in. It's tiresome but I humor them. Sometimes it's not about what you get from listening but what the other person gains by expressing what's on their mind/in their heart.
It's this passive attempt to impress me and it's awkward but I listen patiently.

I hug a friend of mine and her insecure boyfriend is all butthurt about it, it's like "I'd swoop her from you if I felt like it, champ." and there's that moment when he and I make eye contact and volumes are spoken but nothing is verbalized. I make my way home and can't sleep and think about my time out of town with my girl and the consequences from my time back out tasting the waters that I have to face down in order to move on with my life.

I accept that this upcoming court stuff may take away everything I have and it sucks but I have to let go and simply walk through each day and know that if I keep moving it will pass and despite what I lose, the things that I've faced down in the past....no matter how terrible, always ended up making me tougher and less flappable....and cleared out a lot of baggage....be it people, things, obligations, whatever.
I know that I may/probably will lose her and that's simply the tithe I have to pay for spending time back out there, but if I hadn't gone back out, maybe I wouldn't have had the past **** with her and I let it go because again I don't have those answers and I trust that the universe listens but that ultimately it's beyond my control and on one hand, for the first time, I'm hoping for a future, hoping for a life with her and all that entails but simultaneously letting go and knowing that going away may take her from me and that things never work out how we expect and ...


I'm tired of not caring. I'm tired of not making plans.
I'm tired of not hoping for the future.
I don't know if this is my last run at being an adult.
I'm giving it my best effort and trying to keep it between the lines.
Where I was before I came in this last time, emotionally, psychologically...I was bereft of all the things that feel like humanity.

But as always, if we want to get to the other side, sometimes we have to walk through the fire.
Good luck and happy hunting,
   - Yrs. in Christ