Late Night Melancholia

I really want to be asleep right now. I closed my eyes about an hour ago and they just opened and stayed that way. Heavy sigh. I got up. What's the use of trying to sleep when your mind is running, running, running. There are a million and one things to think about right now and they are crowding into the brain at alarming speed. However, I am shoving them to the side (or back or whichever lobe has room at the moment). And the reason is this: I just re-read my older brother's blog post from April. He celebrated the 6th anniversary of his blog with a jaunty playlist and some honest realizations.  I went on to read the comments because I didn't remember if I had commented and wanted to see what others wrote. And there was my other brother commenting in his insightful and wistful way. And I realized I missed them.

When you grow up and move away from family, you start to rework your priorities. Everyone knows this. and Everyone does it. You begin to carve out time for the spouse, the pets, the kids, the job, then the taking care of the house, then the taking care of the kids, then the cleaning of said house, then the maintenance of the car, then the maintenance of the marriage, then--hopefully--the maintenance of sanity by finding a small space to simply stop and breathe. And with all this rearranging of self and time and space, you suddenly notice that its been weeks--no, let's be honest, months since you've conversed with the people you used to live with 24/7. Now, if you don't happen to like your parents or your siblings, this could be freeing and indeed liberating. However, if, like me, you enjoy your family and find them comforting and good companions, this is the opposite of being free. You suddenly feel guilty for having a life outside of them. So you decide to reach out to them and find they are busy with their lives and they haven't gotten to that point yet of, oh, yeah, we haven't talked for a while, have we? So you back off and don't talk to them for even longer, because you don't want to whine or be a pest. It's not a happy place to be.

Recently some people that I thought would always be there were suddenly not. One of them passed away and the other one is moving. I had a rush of feeling that nothing is permanent. No one is there for you all the time. And maybe I'm not quite as lovable as I hoped I was. It's a ridiculous train of thought since the world doesn't revolve around me, but my perception kept poking at me. And then I thought, wait, this isn't true. My family is permanent. My siblings and I really love each other and are there when we need to be. And so I dab my leaky eyes at midnight, thinking of my brothers and sister who I love very much. And hoping they know how much I think of them even when I'm up in the middle of the night, with way too much to think about.