confessions of a child

overthinking overthinking

Counting sheep never helped.

They were distracting. When they jumped over the fence, she would count, one number more than the last. Eventually she would get bored, stop counting and just watch the same white sheep jump over the fence, then run into whiteness, as the picture would fade away. 

Where was it going? How did it continuously jump over the fence, without getting tired? Maybe it had a family, and a home to go to, but instead it was trying to help me go to sleep.

It started with a hand. The hand had been in her mind, ever since she had her sleeping troubles. Nothing scary, just a bunch of hands reaching out to hers. She came up with it, by herself, and she loved just trying to reach for the hand. In the moment, everyone including her, seems to be running in slow motion.

The side she was held on was a bright white, day. The side the hands were pulling to her was dark but you could still see everything, night. As she grows older, the toothy grin grows as well. However, it didn't help her sleep. It was just a visual she had, while laying in bed.

She never has seen the hand grab her, and pull her fully into the darkness. Will that happen when she dies? She hopes so, she wants to meet whoever is behind that hand.

After the hand it was a candle. It flickered slightly, as if one window was open. No windows were ever open in her room. But there was one thing wrong with the candle, which way did it stand? With her head down on the pillow, having the candle standing vertically towards the celling looked bad. But when the candle was laying on the pillow like her it made her disorientated.

Before the hand, her grandmother tried something. Every night they were at her house, she would place a picture in her mind about being picked up my a cloud and taken somewhere. Mamo, her grandmother, her yellow flower, would tell stories about beautiful places that this cloud would take her too, but eventually the cloud would wrap her up and take her back to the spot she started. She always started at the beach, watching the waves roll to her toes.

Every night, she thinks, for new strategies to put her mind at ease. Struggling, she always goes back to watch the flame move, and she continues to reach for the hand. Never does she think about the cloud, that was something she did with her special one. But she is allowed to imagine how soft the cloud was, once it took her body back to the beach, hovering above the land.

She was an over thinker, and not just before bed, when her mind ran the most.