I have a theory.
That some of the things we think and feel are most intense or most exaggerated at night.
Or that the most intense thoughts and feelings are the ones that at night emerge.
--fears, weaknesses, insecurities, dreams, fantasies, obsessions, idols, and demons--
Luggage from the past. Distortions of the present. Pointless projections of the future.
And that we were not meant to face these things head on, not meant to try to defeat or overcome them.
At least not that night.
At least, not on our own.
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It has once been described to me four different levels of relationship. On the outside, level 4, are people who cross your spheres of existence and recognize you by face or name and general categorization but not much more. On level 3 are people with whom you might interact often and who may share an interest or activity with you. They may be acquaintances or friends associated with you in maybe the workplace, school, club, sports team, etc, but the level of relationship and intimacy of personal knowledge of you is not very profound. Then on level 2, there are those whom you consider to be rather close friends, people with whom you spend quite a bit of time who can speak in detail many things about you, but there are certain things that you cannot tell them, things that are so sensitive that you feel that it would destroy you for that information to be revealed, things that you keep to yourself for the benefit of not just your own self-preservation but for the good of the relationship with that person and for your overall social functioning in society. Such intimacy is reserved for level 1 relationships, reserved to very, very few people in whom you have the utmost trust to confide your deepest secrets, the things that are most carefully packaged and buried within you. People who are perhaps best, best friends or spouses, and typically the intensity of such relationships are such that (I think) you can only really effectively have one or maybe two in your life at a time.
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I think about those things that are privy to level 1 relationships--the things that you feel could destroy you--and the intensity of nighttime is such that everything you experience in your heart, in your mind, in your soul, in your stirring physical being...they are magnified at night, and every part of you finds itself desperate for disclosure yet unable or unwilling to divulge. You are overcome by the conviction of solitude and that you have no one (at least in that moment at night) who can save you from the torment of your inner dialogue. It takes more courage to confront the bad spirits.
Perhaps it is the courage to not confront them, actually. Or maybe the wisdom of knowing that those are not the battles to choose.
Because in the midst of just stepping into these battles, you all at once lose sight of who you are, and night has a way of draping a disguise over you so that you forget your values, your own best advice.
It is not until you take a step back from your restless frenzy and look at yourself in the mirror for just one peaceable moment to remember just exactly who you are. It is in this moment of literal and contemplative inner reflection that you see yourself truly and not according to what the world says you are, should be, or should want to be. You still yourself to see not what the world wants to see of you but who you know yourself to be based on the experiences that you have had living with and being yourself.
I look straight into my reflection until I reach a moment where I realize that my eyes are not just looking back AT me but INTO me. In that moment I become both weaker and stronger. All the lies that circulate like vicious poison in my body dissipate and I am empowered with the reminder that although I inherently am a collector of baggage--negativity, self-judgments, shame, guilt--I inhabit a body, mind, and spirit evident of redemption, that I'm not just able but responsible for and privileged to demonstrate and share a goodness and love that has touched me and exists beyond my isolated individual capacity.
I see in the mirror a spirit disheveled with emotional stirring, and suddenly I remember that there is no shame in harboring hurt. It may not be the case that it is worth examining under the microscope of introspection. Pain finds itself sustained when shadowed in concealment, in the unwritten, in the unspoken.
(It is amazing how cathartic it can be, the scribbling of thoughts onto a screen, where aimless swimming meets rest on the stable land of dignified, transparent, concrete expression).
It is in stillness in looking at the mirror that I recognize that night, too, shall pass, for it is just a passing moment, a dungeon of feeling that is inevitably transient.
And I hurt, just as you hurt, just as the next person hurts, but it is how we handle this reality, and maybe conquering it does not involve as much brute force as we think or mean the complete command over it that we might have hoped to have.
I'd like to believe that the coming of day and ending of night is inevitable and that it is just a matter of trusting the watch tower of sleep to get you through the night, or at least not trying to stand against the army of night on your own power. Some demons are very strong, but, although one may feel challenged to rush at them headlong, I wonder if the battle really is best fought by going to bed with your back turned to the voices and ways of the night and waiting to see if they die on their own, with the natural coming of day.
Perhaps it really is simply lying down and allowing yourself to let go of the fight. Maybe it was meant to be fought with the help of others who you might not even realize are fighting for you. Maybe it is about learning to rest amidst the noise, and, although it is not easy, finding the strength to go to sleep and to quiet yourself in faith that joy will come to rescue you even more persistently in the morning.
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