The morning after

“The simple truth is that you can understand the way you are. 

You can know and love and hate it. 

You can blame it, resent it, and nothing changes. 

In the end, you're just a part of it.” 

-- Brenna Yovanoff, The Replacement 

 

Self portrait 7-4-13

"I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.  

I learn by going where I have to go.”

-- Theodore Roethke, "The Waking"

This is a self portrait of exactly how I feel on a morning after a night of no sleep.
A morning like this morning.
You'll have to take my word for it when I say it's a pretty damned accurate likeness.
Weird, but accurate.
Seriously.
I mean, yeah, I know it's a plastic gumball machine monkey wearing a C-3P0 mask, but ...
Trust me.
It's like looking in a mirror.

May the Face be with you

C-3P0 2-16-13

There are days when it feels like my protective shell has been peeled back and I am stripped bare. The sensation is raw, like exposed nerves under an onslaught of weightless invisible air that turns suddenly and unbearably harsh. I try to cover up, to turn away, to somehow shield my fragile, hyper-sensitive self from the sharp edges of discomfort, to mask the pain. But a mask is terribly insufficient protection for a whole self under siege, a self that needs to be properly and tightly swaddled, re-wrapped, bound up, tucked in and held snugly together.