What Tiredness Can Teach Us

When Tired finds me at my laptop, before the sun has even decided to awake, I pretty much know my thoughts are a ball of yarn looped loosely around my mug.

My filter is freer.

The to-do-lists lay quiet because my eyes are still sticky from her tiny sleeps; those intermittent glazed doughnut-like dips into sweet have been interrupted by whatever real and unreal keeps me from deeper sleeps.

Between the gaps of sleep and awake, though, there’s a delicious dark space that floats and sings and feels things that ordinary can’t quite speak.

It’s there that I throw out a query or a problem (rather relentlessly, at times) and let it soak through the bubbles intersecting and touching; it’s very similar to how much we need to connect and belong and find our place.

And that aha! trickles back and wets my face; pillowcases are fine in a pinch when eyes need to turn all river like.

We seem to carry a lot of water in this human vessel as we navigate with a sea of souls that touch our shores bringing us relationships that mitigate our fears and who are truly dear. Sort of like buoys dotting the sea with bells ringing and joining us to the harbor of our being.

Here’s a few other pieces that relate.

Carolyn Riker is a poet, writer and author. She has two books of poetry: Blue Clouds and This is Love. In addition to writing, she has a private practice as a highly sensitive mental health therapist. If you would like to read more of her words, follow her on Facebook at Carolyn Riker, MA, LMHC.