It Gets the Worst at Night

This picture makes me smile and we all could use a smile, right?

I’ve been doing this thing lately where I don’t sleep. It's super fun. 

Well, okay, I do sleep eventually, but I stay up way later than I intend to and sleep in until the last possible acceptable moment, throwing a mini tantrum when I finally force myself out of bed. Picture Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday. It’s a sight to behold. 

I’m doing it right now, in fact. It’s 11:30pm (...which is late for me. I’m old). My whole body is aching with exhaustion. And yet, I’m here at my computer typing instead of crawling into bed and letting sweet darkness overtake me. 

It’s because I don’t want to be present with my thoughts. I don’t like my thoughts at night – when I’m alone and there’s nothing to distract me. I guess it’s not actually that I don’t like my thoughts at night. It’s more that I don’t like them at all, but during the day they are drowned out by the sounds of work and emails and texts and conversations so much so that they feel quiet and distant. 

But at night, they put on their best clothes and go out dancing in my brain. They dance on top of me. They trample me. Until I fall asleep. 

So I choose to distract myself instead.

A year ago, I started a journey to become more present in my life. I thought that if I largely removed social media from my daily routine, cut the ties that technology had on me, and focused on the here and now that all my problems would be solved. Not the case. Though all these things have been and continue to be immensely valuable in my life (and I’m very proud of myself for shifting my lifestyle in these ways), they address symptoms. Not problems. 

The real problem is that I hate being vulnerable and, as part of this, hate when I’m not in control of a situation. What I’ve learned is that being fully present in each moment of my life frequently requires vulnerability. Gross. 

So, I’ve replaced one distraction for another. I may have taken social media out of my life, but I’ve probably spent more time on YouTube or various sources of news (both celebrity and otherwise) over the past year than previous ones. I’ve turned my phone off, but I’ve scrolled endlessly on my computer through articles just to try and draw some sort of energy from their content and avoid my own critical vortex of thoughts. 

I am only marginally more comfortable sitting with myself in silence now than I was a year ago. I’ve made even less progress on being vulnerable with others. Or so I think, anyway. Again, my critical mind is at work - ask me in the morning and I may have a different assessment of my growth. 

I’ve self-medicated with distraction, not wanting to listen intently to what’s happening in my brain and because I struggle with being vulnerable, I’ve kept much of this to myself. 

My paralyzing fear of vulnerability manifests itself in different ways, the most paramount being my frequent inability to receive love – from God, from others, from myself. I don’t trust other people’s love or my own. I’ve arbitrarily categorized it as conditional, despite what I know to be true, and therefore have an incredibly difficult time being fully unguarded in any context. I'm working on it. 

I project all day long the Abbey that is me but is also the version that I deem most palatable to those around me. At night, I’m left simply with the Abbey that is. This version of me that is anxious and cares too deeply about what others think of her and feels like a constant failure at all things, always. The version that knows her worth and value and does not stray from what she knows to be true but who simultaneously feels incompetent, undesirable, and foolish. True to form, this Abbey is also very talkative and commands the room inside my head. 

I know when I’m telling myself lies and I’m grateful for that self-awareness. But it doesn’t stop the lies from being told or the anxiety from creeping in or the insecurity from overwhelming me. It’s an interesting position for me to be in. For so much of my life, I thought I was uber-secure because I didn’t struggle with a lot of the other insecurities that girls my age did. I didn’t fall victim to needing to be approved by a guy or needing to dress or act a certain way to be accepted. I’d much rather be rejected and be myself. What I’m realizing now is that my insecurities have always been there, and they’ve always been loud, but I haven’t seen them in all their fullness until now. 

Eventually, I will be grateful for the past year and a half of my life. I already am in many ways. It’s taught me so much about myself and others and I’ve grown as a result. I don’t think it’s a coincidence at all that in the same year where I’ve tried to make meaningful progress on being present, and therefore vulnerable, that I’ve also experienced some of the deepest hardships of my life. There’s purpose in that and I know that all the pain will ultimately be used for good. But for now, I wait.

I want to circle back to what I said earlier about not being able to receive love, particularly God’s love which defines everything else in my life. If you don’t share my faith, that’s ok. Perhaps this won’t be as relatable to you. But I think it’s important to share what I know to be true in my life. 

I’ve been reminded on two separate occasions this week that I’ve got things backwards a little bit. I spend a lot of time praying that God would free me from my anxieties and my pain and my racing thoughts. I beg him for peace and for relief and for joy in the hard moments. And when I’m not instantly ok or when something else bad happens, I stop talking to him as much. I feel duped. But the truth is that he’s already freed me from these things. Jesus freed me and demonstrated his love through his death on the cross. What God of the universe dies so that others can be free?! It’s mind-boggling to me. 

So, I don’t always have to ask for freedom because he’s given it to me. I just have to trust that that is true and step into it which is crazy hard but also so good. My mind that needs constant reassurance has a particularly challenging time doing this. But I know it’s true. And more than that, he did not promise that this life would be easy. In fact, he kind of promised the opposite. But he did say that he would never leave us or forsake us and that in this life and on this earth, we can have peace and freedom in him even as chaos swirls around and through us. I’m holding to this today and always and believing that it is true, even when I don’t feel it. I am thankful that he is a God who redeems all the mess.  

Before I close, I want to highlight that I know I’m going to be ok. If you know me well then you know that I process, and I wrestle and then I ultimately come out on the other side. For those of you who read my blog consistently, you also know how much I crave joy and celebration and all things fun and dramatic. You know how eager I am to call out those things when I experience them or see others experiencing them. 

But this space is both my outlet and my opportunity to hopefully stand in solidarity with each of you as you navigate your own joys and challenges. I believe it’s important to have more honest accounts of life on the internet (and in the world) and I am happy to fall on my vulnerability sword if it means contributing to a larger body of transparency and community and healing. 

Sometimes, life feels like magic, and it is filled with joy and overwhelming gratitude. Other times, it sucks, and it feels dark and ugly and hopeless. And a lot of the time, it’s somewhere in between. I’ve oscillated between these different categories over the past few weeks, over the past year, over the course of my life. And that’s ok. It’s real life and it’s important for me to show the whole picture and to not edit my emotions, positive or negative, based on how I think people will respond. 

I will say, however, that I’m going to seek out joy this week. Perhaps it will surprise me by coming at night. Perhaps it will come in moments more obvious. Perhaps it will come from a reunion with my family that I’m looking forward to at the end of the week. Join me in this attempt, will you? 

That’s what I’ve got for today. Thanks for listening. Thanks for being. And special thanks to three of my favorite humans – Mikka, Crystal, and my Mama Roxie – who have always been such faithful listeners to me and who pour encouragement into my frequently half-empty cup. As always, this is just the start of a conversation. Please connect with me offline if you want to keep it going. 

Have grace for yourself this week. I’m saying that to me too. 

Xo,

Abbey

Friends, if you’ve read this far, I have songs for you. These three have been particularly meaningful for me this week:

• It Gets the Worst at Night by Lucero (Titular song and the title of one of my favorite episodes of OTH)
• Just Breathe by Pearl Jam
• Starting Line by Luke Hemmings (This song resonated deeply with me. He’s a former boy bander so it’s only natural that I would also love his solo debut)
  
  

And, as a special treat, I recommend you revisit “I’m Sprung” by T-Pain. I was watching the docuseries about Pop Music on Netflix last night (super interesting) and I feel like we should all give him some love.