{"id":1991,"date":"2026-04-03T00:06:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T00:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildpoise.com\/?p=1991"},"modified":"2026-05-15T16:43:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T16:43:58","slug":"the-cost-of-being-awake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildpoise.com\/?p=1991","title":{"rendered":"The Cost of Being Awake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Cost of Being Awake<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Day 107 – March 10, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a cost to being awake. And I don\u2019t mean spiritually awake in the \u201cI bought a candle and started using the word alignment\u201d sense. I mean awake<\/em> awake. The kind where you actually notice what\u2019s happening. In yourself. In other people. In a room. In a sentence. In the tiny split second between what someone says and what they mean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That kind of awake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have always been that way. Curious. Perceptive. Slightly too aware for my own comfort. The kind of girl who can smile sweetly through a conversation while mentally underlining five things that will matter later. The kind of woman who can feel when the emotional floor shifts before anyone else admits the room moved at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That has always been true about me. But trauma sharpened it. Rudely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now I notice even more. And some days that feels like power. Some days it feels like a burden. Most days it feels like both, which is frankly on brand. Because being awake means you see what other people glide past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You see how often people perform understanding instead of actually offering it. You see how frequently charm is just strategy in lip gloss. You see how social life is full of tiny negotiations everyone pretends are natural. You see how often women are asked to betray their own knowing in the name of ease, politeness, harmony, \u201cbeing reasonable,\u201d whatever beige little euphemism the world is using that week to mean please make yourself less accurate so the rest of us can relax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m tired of accuracy being treated like aggression when it comes in a woman. I\u2019m tired of pretending awareness is somehow less feminine than denial. And maybe that\u2019s part of what I was thinking about today. That the cost of being awake is real, yes. You lose certain illusions. You lose the ability to casually believe whatever version of events is most comforting. You lose that soft, floating innocence that lets people drift through life without noticing the blood under the wallpaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you gain something too. Discernment. Precision. The kind of clarity that keeps you from handing your softness to people who would only use it to decorate their own delusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because I am not interested in going back to sleep just because consciousness is expensive. I would rather know. I would rather feel the room. I would rather catch the lie in the pause. I would rather live in truth, even when truth has bad lighting and worse timing, than spend my life nodding along to stories my instincts already know are bullshit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roger spent part of the afternoon staring at me with the steady moral conviction of a judge presiding over the Great Case of Why There Are Not More Snacks. He, too, understands the burden of awareness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And maybe that\u2019s the thing. Being awake is not always elegant. Sometimes it\u2019s exhausting. Sometimes it makes you overthink. Sometimes it makes you lonely in a room full of people enjoying a more simplified version of reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it also keeps you honest. It keeps you alive in your own life. And for better or worse, I was never built for numbness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaos in one hand. Grace in the other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the cost of being awake still nowhere near high enough to make me give it up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Day 107 – There is a cost to being awake. And I don\u2019t mean spiritually awake in the \u201cI bought a candle and started using the word alignment\u201d sense. I mean awake awake. The kind where you actually notice what\u2019s happening. In yourself. In other people. In a room. In a sentence. In the tiny split second between what someone says and what they mean.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":602,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chaos-and-grace"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cost of Being Awake - Wild Poise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A raw, reflective entry journal entry - honest thoughts on healing, resilience, uncertainty, and rebuilding life one day at a time.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wildpoise.com\/?p=1991\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Cost of Being Awake - 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