Couldn't sleep

[cjsmith]

Last night I lay awake for several hours, thinking about some things that had happened a year or two ago and getting very angry about them. I was so angry I couldn't possibly sleep. I just kept going over the events in my mind, over and over, thinking of different ways I could have stood up for myself or ways I could have made things turn out differently.

Why was I so angry? Sure, these things would probably tick off a lot of people, but that was then -- why am I so angry now, more than a year afterward? Why am I still carrying this around? Is it because I'm mad at myself for not sticking up for myself or for not somehow showing my anger at the time?

Comments

[joedecker.livejournal.com]

*hugs* How incredibly frustrating.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Gosh darnit, I want to be able to rewrite the past! Or at least get some sleep. :-)

[msmichelle.livejournal.com]

I've been mad at myself for past situations in which I didn't take a more active role. I can relate. My SO tells me to get over it, to stop wasting time or energy on the past. Women are wired to analyze though.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

"Those who don't learn from the past are doomed to repeat it"? :-) At least I'm not prone to that. It'd be nice to do that learning during the DAY, though! :-)

[harpwolf.livejournal.com]

*hugs* probably you're mad at yourself.

About a year ago I was at Peter Ralston's month-long martial arts/ontology camp, in week 1 (martial arts). It was very late, I needed to sleep, instead I was lying in the tent, listening to the Texas wind incessantly snap the tent canvas, and thinking about all my failures of the past.

How could I have messed things up so bad with the girl I loved? How could I have failed the apprentice program? How could I have screwed things up with my housemate? My railway museum crossed a large railroad, and instead of an expensive crossing they wanted to give us free a 10-mile rail line with some problems... we snubbed it and ended up with nothing, and why didn't I save that somehow??? Stupid irrevocable failures that were probably doomed anyway, irrelevant to anything I could have done... but oh, they and the wind kept me from sleeping, until...

BLAM! like I was hit in the chest with a sandbag, suddenly I Got It... Those niggling past-things Aren't Me! And just like that I utterly, completely forgave myself for all that crap of the past, and it all just washed away. Or stopped being so connected with "me".

It was very sudden and unexpected. I figure the only way I could have dropped all that is if it was mine to drop.