The worst part about waking up in the wee hours of the night is the sense of suspension. I'm caught halfway between going to sleep and getting up, hours to go until sunrise and the proper business of the day, too tired to get out of bed and still hopeful of sinking back into slumber yet too wakeful to simply fade back into sleep. It feels like a balancing act, the safety net so far below that it seems not to be there. The darkness is disturbed by the sleepily indignant protest from cats readjusting to my tossing and turning, the comforting bulk of my body suddenly twisting away and exposing their backs to the cool night air. They wedge up against John who makes a symphony of nasal clicks and whistles as he snores gently. I lie awake, caught in the time between, vulnerable and listening to my own thoughts.
Sometimes they're mean. All the comments I make to myself sound terribly critical in the night hours. A litany of my faults and mistakes, large and small, real and potential, is droning in the background most of the time. At night the volume is turned up: that was stupid why did you keep talking instead of shutting up is it possible for you to do anything right the first time I must be very boring or very irritating because it's been four months and not one response to my calls or email oh god did I forget to issue that ticket oh god I'm fat I'm lazy I'm not smart I've never stuck with anything I always give up why did I lie when will they catch on I'm not a good person if they really knew me they'd be horrified oh god oh god oh god.
I lay in bed and listen to that and a counter beat starts: stop that. You're not doing any good by wallowing in past mistakes. You aren't boring, and if you do bore someone that's different. Stop that. Stop that. You do stick with things. Look at how many times you've stopped and started school, always getting further, always pushing against your own fear of failure and inadequacy. Give yourself credit for being who you are, not who you think you should be. Inner Critic? Shut up already. You do more harm than good. You are a ridiculously outdated method of behavioral modification. I've got your number and it's 1 800 FUCK OFF.
If it's been a bad week I have a hard time getting the counter beat going. Sometimes I simply lie in bed and cry silently, unable to get past the fact that I've screwed up a lot, hurt people, done the wrong thing over and over, failed to be all I could be. I will never be the smartest, the best, the strongest, or the finest. In the night the gap between what I wanted to be and what I am fills me with despair. All my hard work is worthless, all my education and experiences are mere frivolous distractions. The truth, the night truth, is I am merely ordinary. And my head pounds as my skin flushes and my throat constricts in shame.
This is why I hate waking up in the wee hours of the morning. My guard is down. The most absurd thoughts creep in and seem real. I can make myself writhe over mistakes twenty years past. That annoys me intensely. I have always been emotional, far more emotional than everyone around me. Call it artistic temperament, call it nerves, call it anything you like, but I have spent the better part of my life trying to keep my emotions under control and it's difficult. I have strong reactions to everything. I will never be cool and calm. But I can, by golly, guard against the temptation to mistake emotional reality for consensual reality. I have done a lot of foolish, regrettable things because I gave in to instinct and dramatic flourish. But I long ago grew tired of living with the treacherous ebb and flow of emotional reality.
What I have learned to do is to temper the first reaction, hold back on sweeping pronouncements, silence the inner critic. The inner critic started out as a helpful way to remind myself of how to behave socially. It got mean when I started caring more for what others thought of me than what I thought of myself. So it's old, but it's not as old as I am. When the night truths set me to sobbing I call upon my true self, the person I first believed myself to be long before I started trying to meet others' expectations. And in my heart of hearts I know I'm not all those bad things the inner critic claims. I know I'm brave, and true, and strong, and extraordinary. My mistakes are not moral failings. I can always do better, try harder, push my limits, but that doesn't mean negating my accomplishments so far.
No matter how bad it gets at night I have an inner toughness that combats the dark. I picture myself wearing a shiny suit of impervious material and wielding a large quill pen that pokes holes in the shoddy fabric of my fears and sweeps away the debris with the feathers. Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Quillina, capable of rewriting anything!
My inner critic can't begin to compete with my inner superhero.
The Index
Next Incarnation
Border graphic by Jade Leaves Designs in memory of Ginkgo