Soren and Sleep

Those who know me know I deal with anxiety issues. Those who know me well know how I calm myself down, a tall glass of cold milk, cooking shows, solitaire, my mother, or sleep. I'm a huge believer on sleeping things off, whether they be anxiety attacks, hangovers, or seasonal colds. I believe sleeping on major issues, and that you do your best thinking in bed. Which is all hunky dory if you can sleep. Which I currently cannot. And so when my anxiety brings it's best friend insomnia over, I turn to the best invention to occupying your brain for hours with useless data, the internet. 

And while perusing the great web tonight, I searched a favorite site of mine that collects humorous, insightful, and thought provoking quotes from books. Those of you who know me really, really well know that I not only have a deep passion for random facts, I also genuinely love a good quote. By copy and pasting i collect pages of quotes in word documents. When I am feeling like I hate school, I look up quotes. Love your sisters but can't stand to be in the same room at times, look up a quote. Can't figure out how to start that greeting card, look at quotes. And tonight I googled "quotes on anxiety" and discovered a pure gem, “To venture causes anxiety, but not to venture is to lose one's self.... And to venture in the highest is precisely to be conscious of one's self.” ( Søren Kierkegaard)

I felt that through the wide web, through my iPhones screen, through my bleary eyed insomnia, Soren was pointing at me. Basically saying,"so what you are anxious about leaving. It's part of the package. To climb aboard a massive jet to be propelled across oceans thousands of feet in the air, to land on foreign soil that has had government for longer than your country has had cave drawings, to meet and live with near strangers and to be the caregiver of a small child who is learning to speak a different language, to live in a country that doesn't have moose, believes roosters say "chicker ree chee" and where the beer is way better. This is stressful. This should cause anxiety." 

I feel my family and friends would be more worried if I packed up and left with out a few nonsensical impulse purchases, without a few sleepless nights, and without a few random texts from me at one am asking what the hell am I doing. 

What the hell I am doing is "venturing" is using my freedom and cultivating the dizzying anxiety that comes with it into very organized packing, high calcium intake, and the desire to be conscious of myself, to know I don't know all, to learn, to love, to grow. 

And hoping I eventually fall asleep.