Vivid Fixation and the Next Thing

I woke this morning in the dark and quiet and the cool air. In my sleep I had kicked all the blankets into a heap on the left side of my bed, and become naked and unprotected against the cold. In that way, it was just like every other night in recent memory.

It was still dark, though, so why was I awake? I curled over, picked the blankets back up again, and closed my eyes, but although it was pleasant to do so, sleep did not return.

I felt more awake than I have enjoyed much lately. I have been going through my days oppressed by fatigue since the weekend at least. Sleep did not come, but memories did. Vivid, bright, full memories, as though the moment played again before my eyes. A certain face. A certain closeness. A certain sofa, in a living room with broad, open windows toward the college. A certain voice. "I'm not saying no. I'm saying, not today."

Too vivid. Too bright. I grew mad and somewhat frenzied inside my skull. To the dark and empty room, I said, I love you, I miss you. I hope you are well, Eoin. I hope you still want to see me again.

The memories, bright and blinding and all-consuming in their vividness.
I turned on my laptop, looked there, and found someone to talk to.
I told kitten mother the story of Eoin, patchwork and out of order, out of a crazed suspension: I don't know if this is okay.

Kitten mother listened. She heard. She understood. She's good at that. Offered some soft advice, once it was asked for. I go away calmer, soothed for now out of the madness, brought back to the strategy for moving forward, so simple and obvious that it seems odd to have been confused. Except, of course, that I was in a state of madness and confusion, so that too is obvious.

Tell the future to stay in the future. Do the next thing next, not the last thing next. That is impossible, and so of course it will only leave me with fretting. Do the next thing next, and with stubbornness, until that which belongs to the future is willing to wait.

I practice returning for a moment to the vivid memories, and then pushing them away. There is bending and echo in my mind when I try to push them away, but I am able.

Think of anything, absolutely anything, except a purple elephant. Next thing. Next thing next. Old fashioned boombox. Yellow floral bedsheet. Canoeing. The elephant looms, but is told off and told to return to its corner. It is quite like an excited dog. It is not at all that I don't love you, it is that you are in the way. Go. Hide your face. I still love you, and I will tend to you later.

I think I can do this. I will worry that I might fail. Fine. Mistakes are mistakes. Mistakes are of the future. I'll deal with them when I get there. I worry. But I think I can do this.

I have an accounting assignment to work on. That, at the moment, is the next thing. Perhaps food first, and then that.