and now for something not so different

If anyone out there was wondering what it's like inside my head, talking to God, kicking myself around, this will give you a window. 

I'm staying with some wonderful friends at the moment, the next in the long line of beautiful souls who have taken me in and given me a bed. But, I'll be looking for somewhere more permanent, and the issue I keep circling around is whether or not I can psychologically survive living on my own. 

I just made myself a malted milk, and settled down to type some stream of consciousness:

So, the crap-est part is just before bed.

When you walk through an empty house and there's no one to say goodnight to.

Perhaps Phil is right. Perhaps sleep is death. So having no one to say goodbye to is like dying alone.

And I'm sorry, my smaller-than-a-mustard-seed faith often doesn't comfort me with the truth that I am seen and known, at a time like this, when I am alone.

It's fine in the morning, I'm up, I've got things to do. I'm clearly not dead!

It's a new dawn, it's a new day, and it'll only be a short time before I see someone to talk to.

I could take myself down to a cafe, remind myself that everybody else is alive, and here.

I could send a text, call a friend, set up a meeting.

Why is it a problem at night...?

Alien hours stretch before me.

Hours of vulnerability, unconsciousness. Hours of dark and danger.

Hours of rehearsal for lying in a coffin, dark, immobile, silent and alone.

That is the time of day when I most wish someone was with me, by touch or sound. To hold my hand, or kiss me goodnight, or at least exchange a farewell glance as we peel off to our separate rooms. A shared smile, an acknowledgement that we'll be there together, in the sleep of death.

I can't do it because of the nighttime!

I can do it in the day, when the world's alight and friendly, and birds, postmen, traffic, planes and school bells line my way

through this weary progress,

making it all okay.

I could live by myself during the day only... 

No wonder pillow-talk is such a soothing practise. All the secrets and fears of the day come out.

Off-load, release, before the dark closes in and claims all hands of friendship in paralysing doubt.

I can think of nothing worse than dying in my sleep, because I know it's then I will be most alone. More alone than I've ever been before. Laid out, out cold, already waiting in state. But with no one to observe, except the ants and cockroaches, raking over the detritus of my life.

Come sleep, perchance to dream.

If only I could sleep in day, and stay on guard during all the watches of the night.

Stay alert, watch movies, beat sunrise back to beginning. Then rest, the sleep of victory, knowing I have graced the field with bright banners of triumph, defeating the guerilla camps of night.

By day I isolate by choice. Free walking, loose talking, not minding silence slipping by.

I would even lie down with a lion, just for the warmth. And that's what scares me most.

I'm a sheep, not a feline, and until you call Time, that's not a safe place for me to be. Lions still bite, sheep still bleed, and there's no sense in that picture at all.

But sheep are herd animals, just like the rest of us, so maybe they do feel safer with a lion than with nothing at all...

I don't wanna go hunting lions. 

But I don't want to live alone.