I think I may be an elf. One of J.R.R. Tolkien’s elves to be precise. I love low light. Our TV is downstairs in the family room, but you can usually find me upstairs in the evening sitting with my Chromebook. The little light is on in the curio cabinet in the living room. The little light is on in the china hutch in the kitchen (as well as a string of little white lights on top of it that are woven through some greenery). And in the stairwell is a 6″ high glass lamp with a nightlight in it so we can see to go up and down stairs in the dark. I am totally content and at peace to sit here in that dim light and let all the day’s cares go watch TV for awhile.
But darkness is an entirely different matter. I’m one of those people whose mind won’t shut off when they go to bed. I will repeat every conversation I had during the day to see if I could have given better advice or if I’ve offended anyone. I worry about things I did or didn’t do, what’s going on tomorrow, what needs to be done. And if I run out of things to fret over for me, I can always mentally rearrange the kids’ or Drollery’s life so THEY won’t have to fret over their own!
Trouble is, it’s not always just things from that day or the next that I worry about. Sometimes the past comes back to haunt me in the darkness. Those can be bad nights. The darkness is a breeding grown for nightmares long past. And the older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve realized that monsters don’t just live under the bed or in the closet. If you were to quickly shine a flashlight in my eyes in the middle of the night, you might even see one retreating behind my pupils. Getting to know yourself can sometimes be a scary thing…
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Picture Credits:
Galadriel — lotr.wikia.com
Monster Eye — www.pinterest.com
Impromptu Promptlings 
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Beautifully expressed, and I love the picture too.
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Hi sweetie!!! I lost you (and about 15 other blogs — for the third time)! And haven’t seen you around. How are you???
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I solved my problem of worrying trying to sleep, I play music. As for little lights I have Fairy Lights in my bedroom over mirror and pictures, better than lamps etc.
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I did our guest bedroom that way the first time Kim came to stay with us from Australia. I put a garland of silk leaves with lights entwined in them around the dresser mirror. Loved it. But it was just for ambiance. I never could have slept with them on. She didn’t either.
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That sounded beautiful, believe it or not being deaf on left side, and now hearing not 100% on right side, I have to sleep with alarm clock under pillows, still don’t hear the damn thing half the time.
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Interesting. I have similar sleep issues. Last night was very hard. I dreamt that I was killing zombies to protect my family. With everything going on in the world with two black men and then police killings I feel I am under attack. When will this nightmare end? 😟
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You are SO right. That’s just the way it feels, doesn’t it? It starts to become personal after so much of it. You find yourself wondering if you’ll ever be a victim of something. At least I do. But then I AM a wee bid paranoid according to Drollery!
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Have you ever had a night where you think you are wide awake but you’re not ? i have many of those. I’ve even had arguments with TRH telling him I was awake all night, and he says, you were NOT, you were snoring ! It’s lucid dreaming. Weird, huh. Just to add my bit to the light thing. Research has shown that in order to have good quality sleep the room needs to be dark. Something to do with some hormone or other
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I’ve had a couple lucid dreams. One was the worst one I ever had. Drollery has them a lot. And I knew that about the light. For a long time I stood an envelope in front of the numbers on the alarm clock! Then it dawned on me I could just turn it around. LOL But even then it reflects off the wall. The numbers are like 2″ tall!
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We just don’t have a clock in the bedroom at all
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Ah, but you see the difference is you are fortunate enough to be retired! 😀 Drollery still needs the alarm clock… Dang it!
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So much truth there C..
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Kind of traumatic when you come to that realization. But it’s like Plato says, we’re not one nor the other, we’re both at the same time. Actually that’s what the Seeker ended up being about today. Must have been on my mind.
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Oh, you reminded me of something similar I often experienced that I called night terrors. I wrote a poem about that 20+ years ago. I wonder where that one is? Yes, getting to know yourself can be scary but all new relationships that grow into love start out that way, no?
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Very good point, and I’m prayin’ you’re right! 😀 Night terrors. I’m very well acquainted with them. Didn’t grow out of them until after my son was born. I was 29 the last time I remember having one. I’ve written about them somewhere on here, too.
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All those roads not travelled. Yet we are on this road. Best to sort the best way forward from here and leave what could have been as mere food for thought.
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Yes, you’re absolutely right. That’s a lesson I need desperately to learn! I waste a lot of sleep time mulling stuff over.
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Had to show that beautiful elf to Verd, He’s a Cate Blanchette fan. So you like to live in the twilight zone? I did an in-depth study at uni on people’s daydreams, or daymares, I was testing out someone’s theory about their function. Anyway, one of my findings was that they are more commonly not dreams, but are very grounded in the mundane – those conversations you have, rerunning them, saying the things you wish you had said. We do it to make ourselves better people in the future whatever that means to us individually. The study made me realise these aren’t monsters, but little angels of our mind preparing a more positive path for the future. I think you may have gathered, I like to experience the extremes. During the day I love lots of light. When I take to bed, I need it to be pitch black. It’s the yin & yang balance I thrive in. But I hate black/white thinking, preferring shades of grey and intellectual uncertainty. I like the idea of being the three faced Hecate. But she can’t compete with that elf in Verd’s eyes!!
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LOL Well all I can say is I’m with Verd on this one! That must have been an interesting study. Daydreams or daymares — you mean when someone is SLEEPING (napping) during the day or is just off imagining?
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Just off imagining … It’s known as ‘going offline’ now. It set me off in a different and more consuming interest, but I’ve learned it’s a very underestimated and undervalued cognitive capability.
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I like that you refer to it as a capability. Make me think I can do more things than I thought! LOL I love that phrase “going off line.” Going to start using that. LMBO!
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