Hazy

That's my state of mind most of these days--I autopilot my 9-5s with the kids at work, trudge home for too-long naps against my better judgement when the rest of the world is wide awake, and then whittle away at the last hours of the day (into early mornings of the next) scrolling and reading and watching, but all without really processing.

And it's comforting, I suppose, this endless loop of sunscreen-Buzzfeed-Dasey, this moving-important-things-I-really-ought-to-do-to-next-week, this weekend-bliss-with-friends-without-a-care-in-the-world-despite-bills-to-pay-and-nothing-figured-out (Taylor Swift reference, no extra charge).

It's comfortable, and that's the problem.

I've always been full steam ahead, go-go-go, doing things with meaning and having an actual plan. Spending my days like this while friends do internships and travel and get their lives together unsettles me and gives me anxiety I didn't even know I could feel. 

Playgrounds and splashpads and city-wandering adventures numb. They dull the throbbing, always-there headaches and take my mind off  Big Questions and thoughts of The Future, just for a little while. And fiction is always a convenient escape.

But in the night, in the screaming silence and the pitch-black, the window is open and the smog clears and I'm just unbearably lucid.

These nights, I don't get much sleep.