To sleep or refect, that is the question!

There are two things that people do at 3 in the morning. Sleep or become reflective. I have chosen to become reflective. So reflective that I even turned off Barney Miller. Often times, the TV is just a companion anyway. This is one of those nights, though, that makes a person either sleep or reflect, and I have plenty to reflect on. It’s not that I think that I’m special or anything, and that I feel I am the only insightful person…well, actually, I have always thought that I was unique…but everyone eventually reflects on his or her own life. It’s always amazing to me that people, even myself, often only see the world through their own eyes. I’m not just talking about empathy, I’m talking about realizing that that person walking out of the store or reading a magazine at the local Borders may not look like anything special to you, but they have their own worries and dreams everyday. Their stressors and adventures might put ours to shame with how dramatic their everyday stories are lived. But keeping perspective is hard while we live our day to day lives. I guess we just keep trying in this world to be the best that we can be, and hopefully, leave that world and enter another with dignity and humbleness. Yep, look out, world, I'm on a reflective rampage!
Now, there’s always a bundle of insight that you want to put on paper for prosperity. If this insight isn't waking you at 3am, it usually happens in the middle of the day and in a store somewhere where you are in no position to write anything down except maybe a phone number or website. I am always craving to write in my journal in the middle of the afternoon when I am miles from my journal and a single piece of paper lent to me by someone’s notebook is insufficient because I couldn’t possibly just insert it into my journal later and pretend it is part of the bound pages. So often, my hoards of wisdom are lost and I later write “catch up” journal entries late into the night (not this late) that are filled with mostly chit-chat. “So and so came over…it was fun….school is hard….”
We all have to admit that we write in our journals in the hopes that someday when we are old and a mystery to our descendents, that some prepubescent relative will discover our bundle of journals and revel in the unfolding mystery of our lives and characters. Finally, we will have been discovered and our wisdoms and adventures will jump from the pages to tell the tale of our unique lives!
Yes, I’ve always had these romantic thoughts. I know that I get this from my mother. She is a nut in the nicest sense of the word. I had no idea until later in my long life (Presently, I’m 9 days away from turning 35!) that I am directly descended from her nuttiness. I always knew I was weird, (“unique”, my mother always said), but I always thought that was all from my own merit. I had no idea that it was inherited.
There’s something wonderful about being a hopeless romantic. In choosing a spouse, you definitely don’t want to settle for anyone that doesn’t remind you of your father or grandfather. And in reading, you have an endless appetite for great romantic suspense novels. Of course, the latter fuels your imagination and you play that role of the heroine that discovers secret vaults in abandoned castles while someone is planning her murder. On top of that, she has fallen in love with a mysterious gentleman that could be her future or her end. Of course, the last page of the book fills me with grief, as I have involved myself too much in the story. But I suppose, everything comes to an end eventually. Now, what was I talking about?!
At this moment, I have come so far away from my original path that my reflection is lost. I'm sure I was reflecting on something lifechanging or perhaps, something not so lifechanging. Let's see...Be nice to others, I'm a nutty romantic and I love historical romances/mysteries. Oh-kay...! Confusion at this late hour is probably just that sneaky sandman bidding me with his real purpose in mind: Go to sleep, you loon! Oh well, not to worry, for there will be many more afternoons to ponder over and nights to lose sleep in. Hopefully when that happens, Barney Miller will be on again!