Settling in the dark

It was a long and drawn out day at work. When I arrived home it was bustling with my loud family and their usual antics. My youngest brother was getting ready for his afternoon run, stretching by the living room couch. Dad was listening to some motivational speaker, one of about three dozen that he rotates through, on his ancient laptop in the kitchen. My mother and other brother sat on the couches in the family room. They were watching the Laker game in spite while arguing and yelling randomly at the figures on the enlarged screen. I proceeded to walk upstairs and watch something on t.v. that didn't involve any yelling or confrontation. I had been surrounded by such an environment for a nine hour shift this morning and would rather not take the beating of harsh voices at the moment. Being worn and just about ready to fall over from the demanding spring semester of school and work, my emotions lay spread thin. I had just returned from counseling an old friend, a thing I should retract from my services, but nonetheless, I see a need and attempt to meet. My whole week actually had been sprinkled with the aiding of certain, let's call them needy for lack of a better word, friends. No, needy sounds like I dislike them, I love them, just not their lack to rationally think through their problems before throwing them up on the first available ear that will listen. Usually, that's me. And I digress. But this blog isn't about my emotional and tormented friend. It is about a moment I came to many hours later. In my room I sat, regurgitating the information processed for today, and my interwoven mind began to bring up the moments throughout the week, the past, the pushed away and hidden past. The kind one tries to dispose of deep within the cerebral but for some reason, can never fully get rid of. One of my favorite artists came on my ihome, the song was one I had heard countless times, a favorite actually. But, a line in it began to make me think. "And here i rest where disappointment and regret collide....Lying awake at night." My mind began to spin around this phrase, the words disappointment and regret standing out like bright lights on a darkened highway. I began to realize that it was I who sat, in the night, allowing these thoughts to keep my mind from moving on in the 24-hours of the day. I was so focused on the present issues in my family, my friends, and even my own life, I wasn't enjoying anything to the fullest anymore. It is like my brain is a running machine without an off switch, nothing to just stop the wheels from creating product of thought and reasoning. It keeps me in a state of unease more than I'd like to admit. But, how can I stop allowing the lives of others to influence my own? Trust me, this isn't the first time the light bulb has been turned on. Do you sacrifice a part of yourself to aid another? Or do you be selfish and remain a vessel which only sifts through the practices, frustrations, and intelligence of your own? I will probably never stop helping people. Only time will tell if this gift of aid will ruin my happy ending as I attempt to construct anothers.