Listening to Chicago on the way in and this lyric stuck out:
"you're just the part of me I can't let go"

Pretty good was of expressing the way we each belong to one another. And maybe it's part of the reason it is hard to be tender. We let others in, they become part of us, and if they leave or we leave, sometimes it feels like whole chunks of us are torn out. And the pain can be unbearable. So we either risk the unbearable or we don't. And how can we help but risk it when we know the dull pain of isolation whose small steady dose makes us dead.

Dead or alive with pain. I don't always want to make a choice between those two options. But I can't seem to avoid the choice either. And it seems the best I can do is to make the choice conscious.

And I hear the lyrics of both Evanescence and Green Day in my mind. 'Wake me up inside.' 'Can't wake up.' 'Wake me up before September ends.' And I pull the covers over my head, reach for a life snooze button, and hope 10 more minutes makes the choice look better.