Wednesday, July 17, 2013

What Keeps Me Up at Night - Story Unfolding 101


*What keeps you up at night? What could you talk about every single day for the rest of your life? What do you want to shout from the rooftops so everyone will know? What runs electric through your veins?

What keeps me up at night? Seriously?
What doesn’t keep me up at night?
Photo Via Pinterest
I don’t sleep much, or well. So the fact that I can’t sleep, keeps me up. Fear of insomnia taking over my life once again, keeps me up. People use the word insomnia too much. I think I likely did as well, until I actually had it, and sleep would not come to me, not at 1 am, not at 3 am, not a 5 am. Never. Finally I would nap some afternoons, for short periods of time. Insomnia, you know when you have it, and it is dreadful!
What keeps me up at night?
Conversations I ought to have or would like to have, will keep me up. Thinking about marriage and friendships, keeps me up at night.
Story ideas keep me up at night.

Songs stuck in my head keep me in a state of consciousness.

Oddly enough, ways in which I can meet and have dinner with Prince keep me up at night.
If you tell me to think about ice cream flavors to help me get to sleep, instead of counting sheep, now THAT, keeps me up. DO you know how many ice cream flavors you can think of? Remember the ice cream in a cone shape plastic cup, it was pink and had a gum ball at the bottom, and you ate it with a wooden stick spoon? What about the Canadian Mint Bar or Strawberry Shortcake? Oh and pudding pops! See what happens?
My brain does not shut the fuck up!
This writing prompt does not help me, and it even kept me up one damn night!

Now what could I talk about every single day? Again, some would say Prince. Weird, I know. Others would say my daughter, my cat, the crappy service you get from people in retail stores.

I know where this writing prompt is meant to go, what it is supposed to inspire in me. It doesn’t.

Here is the thing. Something that moves me, or something I am passionate about, it is not something tangible.
It is a feeling.

It is a deep, unbending need that gnaws at me every day, a need that I push into those deep crevasses.

It’s a feeling of home, of family (not necessarily the traditional sense of family). It is a place of belonging.
That is what it is, that ignites me, what I want to shout from the rooftops. This feeling I search for and long for, that I am scared I will die without feeling it.

A feeling of love and warmth, closeness, kindness, tenderness, sharing, caring and an absolute unvarying, sum of exchange.
Love that is given and returned on the parity,

A place of solitude, peace and tranquility,
Beauty,

Trust,

And Adoration.

Thanks for stopping by!

Tannis

1 comment:

  1. Belonging. Oh, yes. Yes. That is my deep need, too. And I'm glad you have solitude, here, in your list. I think true belonging does allow that: solitude and silence. Tannis, I pray that you will find this, at least in bits and glimpses. I pray that you'll allow all those hampster-wheel thoughts to rest and you'll sink into this, what you really want. It's there.

    ReplyDelete