It's some time after 3am. Hard yellow light from the neighbor's porch filters through the slats in the blinds, spreading a fan of luminescent feathers across the ceiling. I lay on my back in a tangle of blankets, a classic portrait of insomnia. Anxiety hums in an electrostatic aura around my body. I pull the dog onto my chest.
"Pilot," I say to him. "I need to tell you what I am feeling."
Pilot resigns to his responsibilities as little dog and lays his head across my heart. His body is alert, listening.
"Buddy," I start again. Even when spoken to a dog the words are difficult to form. "Buddy, lately I've been getting reminders about a painful time in my life. Reminders of old habits and behaviors and people that hurt me. Reminders of a time when I would hurt myself. Pilot, I got so confused and afraid that I turned numb."
Tears slide out sideways, damp against my temples, cold into my ears. I am meat and bones and alive and heavy. I am strong, but life is so fucking fragile. Parents turning into old people. Friends having strokes. Wars, droughts, cancer, storms, earthquakes, fires, nightmares...
"Numb was the worst, Pilot." I run my hand down the wiry hairs of his long little back. "I am glad I am feeling right now. I am glad I am sad and I am glad I am scared. I will never go numb again."
We lay in the dark together for a long time, his head on my chest, my hand on his back. I think about the journey that got me here. The fear and the turmoil and my solitary road to safety. I did this. I built this. Nobody can destroy it but me.
So why am I still afraid?
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