monsters under my bed

I’m scared to go to sleep. I sound like a five year old with pigtails clutching to a teddy bear while telling her parents that there are monsters under her bed so she’s scared to fall asleep. I imagine, now that I am slightly older, who represents these monsters in a child’s mind. We only fear things when we are afraid that we will lose something because of them. What does a kid imagine they will lose? I am almost sixteen and the biggest monster in my life isn’t under my bed but inside my mind, my thoughts.

I always try to keep myself busy. Not because I fancy leading a life of a workaholic but because if I let my mind sit idle for one moment  I will

everything that can go wrong in my life. If I go to sleep early no matter how my day must have gone, I would think how it could have been better, how it could have been more productive. So I tire myself. I tire myself to the point where the moment I close my eyes I will fall asleep instead of lying in the bed looking at the ceiling thinking about anything and everything till the point the fear takes over my sleep and I am sitting on the bed making a to-do list for tomorrow. 

This fear is alive because of my need to make sure that everything goes my way. I have just developed the need to fear something in order to achieve something. Sometimes I find the whole thing ironic. Maybe the only reason I feel this fear is because I am afraid. Afraid that if I don’t fear, I won’t push myself enough to get what I want.

You know that little girl who is too scared to fall asleep? What if the only thing she fears to lose is herself because that is what she values the most, herself. Well I guess that way growing up we all take the first step towards losing ourselves when we forget to fear losing ourselves in the process of making sure that everything else in our life remains secure.