Pain in My Heart

I know I can only be responsible for myself and my own actions. What I can't quite figure out is how to keep the actions and decisions of those I care about from affecting me. I guess logically it shouldn't. Unfortunately my emotions aren't usually logical. Actually I'm not sure emotions can be logical. Isn't that what makes them emotions?

I care a great deal about what happens to the people I love. I want to right their wrongs. I want to take away their pain. I want to save them from dangers. I want to fix everything that is broken. More often than not, I can't. Even though I know everyone is responsible for themselves, I can't help but feel that I've failed in some way. When I can't right their wrongs, take away the pain, keep them from harm or fix what's broken, it isn't they who have failed, but myself. Failed them as a friend, failed as a protector, failed as a person.

Someone once told me that caring so deeply is a gift. It's also a burden. I cry when they shed tears. I hurt when they hurt. I loose sleep worrying for them and about them. Their failures are my failures. All of this weighs so heavily upon me at times that I wish I could just be numb to it. Wish I didn't care so much. Wish I could just look out for numero uno. All of the worry and protecting wears me down sometimes. I just wish I could close my eyes have a dreamless worry-free sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.