split-screen.

Here we go. Home stretch, final countdown. One week to the day.

And, I'm not freaking out.

Well, not freaking out as in how I'm normally functioning at this time before any vacation I take. My lists have been made, outfits matched with according days, shoes to match, accessories picked. Toiletries placed in those god-awful carry-on sized containers. Other than some laundry needing to get done, picking up the house, and running some probable last minute errands the day of, I'm set. Ready to roll. My lists never fail me and that's why I produce and stick to them like the crazies on Hoarders do to shopping. I. Handle. My. Shit.

...except for this whole not sleeping thing.

It started innocently enough. If by innocent standards means waking me out of a dead sleep in a full on panic attack? Yeah, innocent. It was one of those moments where I start the mental checklists (always dangerous) and then completely freak the fuck out over it. Because, as it always does, makes me feel like I'm taking on too much. Trying to fit and squeeze in too much in the weeks-worth of time and I already start feeling horribly guilty about the time, or lack thereof, I'm going to get to spend with the people that want to see me. My mind starts going a million miles a minute and I can't rationalize anything. ANYTHING. Then it starts going to places that are just, completely dramatic and it's all over from there. Goodbye sleep, hello breakdown and Allison magically morphs into a 2 year old. It's like a serious case of Benjamin Button-itis, but without the gratuitous use of Brad Pitt. Shame.

That would have been okay, had this pattern not continued for the past SIX DAYS. Six meaning last Wednesday to today. 123456. A bedtime of nothing earlier than 3:30am. Most of which spent reading, tossing and turning, then pacing and more tossing and turning. I tried to convince myself that I didn't know why this was happening, I wasn't THAT freaked out over it. In my mind, I had it under control.

HAHA. FIRST MISTAKE. POINT AND LAUGH. TRY AGAIN.

History, and common sense, should tells me that I know exactly why I'm eerily calm during the day and then channeling my inner Regan from The Exorcist late at night. I know this, obviously.

I'm placing myself back in the situation that I left oh so long ago and quite frankly, that scares the SHIT out of me. I'm terrified to go back to this place and feel any sort of inkling of the person I was when I left. I'm not that same person by any means, give or take a few wondrous traits that still hang around. I'm different, stronger and completely capable of "steering my own ship" (borrowing what I now like to call a Stacy-ism) yet this place may as well be the tank holding Jaws captive and I'm going to dive headfirst into it to take a little dip. Why? Why am I putting myself back in this situation of which I ALWAYS know the outcome? I get eaten, every. single. time.

This is the first time I've admitted this. Out loud, to myself, at all. Mostly because when I say it out loud, it becomes real. A real, honest to god admission of being scared. Of being weak, which I DO NOT LIKE SHOWING. I prefer the much more subtle 'sob myself into hysterics in the corner of a dark room all alone', thank you very much.

But I've decided that I'm not going to fight it. There's nothing to fight, and manifesting a conflict for justifying why I'm batshit insane isn't going to do me any good. I'm not afraid of who I've become, I'm afraid of who I was mostly because I know how easy it is for me to slip back into that oh-so-comfortable yet completely self-destructive behavior just to make other people comfortable. The desire to be the "healer" (Stacy-ism) is there, and always will be because it's just part of who I am. That, I've realized, is just another one of those wonderful personality traits that I'll probably end up passing on to my future, itsnevergonnahappen children. They can thank me later.

But I can't control the feelings of other people, just my own. Mostly, I can't sacrifice my own well-being for the sake of others. It's not my job any more. It makes for one lonely and miserable person, as I'm all too well aware of. AKA: the time I had the epic breakdown and should have been held on a 5150. Yet another reason as to why I love California!

I need to go into this prepared, and I'm finally starting to feel like I am. It's a vacation, for godssakes. I go, blow everyone out of the water with how fierce I am, pay for nothing, get inappropriately drunk because I can and then I get on a plane and come home. I think knowing there's a beginning and an end helps with that. It doesn't sound all that bad, when I put it that way.

I'm starting to feel better already.

Oh, except for the fact that we're taking family photos while I'm there. That should make for one hell of an interesting story, if we don't end up on Awkward Family Photos first.

Dear God, help us.