the stick to beat yourself with

it's past 4am. you're still up. you should try to get at least a little sleep. but you can't stop thinking about this thing. you can't stop looking for ways to punish yourself with criticism. you can't help but comb through that scant hour, every move, every line, as if that fairly innocuous conversation was a fucking crime scene. it wasn't. it isn't. the conversation went exactly the way it needed to go. stop obsessing.

let go.

let go of it.

you don't have to repeat the same mistakes over and over again. you don't have to walk away from this one a bloody, beaten mess.

one thing at a time. focus on one thing at a time.

keep your focus steady on this fox thing. other things can fall into place after you get that.

now please, try to forget all of this for an hour or two and get just a little bit of sleep before work.