I Cannot Escape Ingrid Michaelson

"All I can do is keep breathing..."

"I want to change the world - instead I sleep."

It's like she climbed into my head and pulled one of my most basic facts and one of my most tender fears. I have this secret image of myself, of the highest potential that might be possible. I keep it buried in my heart, working towards it silently. I can see where I'd like to be, but I don't feel worthy enough to pursue it with any sincerity. Instead I find that I am stuck in a cycle of self-loathing and running away from anything uncomfortable.

I want to go to school. I want to be enthusiastic and happy. I don't want to plan my laughter, to analyze a comment and create a reaction to it. I want to pursue the things that spark a fire in me. I want to use those things to become someone who can help people and make a difference. I want to change the world!

Instead I sleep. I flee to sleep like a child to a security blanket. In sleep I can shut out the real world and escape into one that, even when frightening, ends up safe. I feel tired all the time, the kind of tired that comes from discontent rather than lack of sleep. I want to be a turtle and retreat into my shell and stay there.

I feel so trapped. My age-old backup plan has been cut off. I can't take a handful of pills and give up on everything - though I want to so badly that I find myself staring at the bottles before walking away. My escape route has been eliminated and now I am left trying to figure out how to make my way through this world.

I know it is all about choices. And I know that I am the one making the choices. And yet I constantly make the wrong ones. I tell myself that I am going to go do something productive like laundry or whatever. And then I find myself laying on the couch to go to sleep. And I think to myself - wait! How did I get here? Get up! And tell my body to get up. And nothing happens. I have made the wrong choice again.

I don't know how to get the things I want without losing the things I have and most of the things I have, I'm not willing to lose, like my house and my van and the kids being able to take lessons and things. I feel that to take away the things that would need to be sacrificed would be selfish. So I am stuck in a kind of stasis, trying to tread water to keep everyone around me happy.

"I want to change the world. Instead I sleep." (Keep Breathing, Ingrid Michaelson)