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Have you ever woken and for half a second forgotten where you were? As in a time warp "where you were," like for a blink of an eye you think you're living back home, even though it's been at least a decade or two? Or you've woken up and thought, maybe because of the dream you just had, that you're back in your college dorm?

This morning, after a bad nightmare, I started awake and for a full second almost thought I could get dressed and go to the little chapel that used to be on the campus where I went to school years ago. How nice that would be if it were true.

The worse my insomnia gets the more I wish there were an all-night chapel near me. I'm not a big fan of churches full of people, but I love empty ones. I don't know if that sounds creepy; I like people, I really do. But there's something about an empty church I love. I get nervous around crowds and a full church can feel judgmental (sometimes, somehow).

Architecturally, so many churches and cathedrals are wondrously beautiful. But the small chapels I've been in college and hospitals over the years really give me peace.

When my niece was little she was hospitalized with a blood infection for a week. Every night I would go to the chapel and pray and find some peace even though we were all worried sick about her and often couldn't sit still very long.

After she recovered and things returned to normal again, I found my faith returning more strongly and would go to full churches. But it was odd how I never felt the peace I did in those small chapels and how much, right this second, I wish there one here in my building.

This year has been so much harder than I ever could have imagined. I know God isn't just in a chapel and I don't want Him to make things better for me. My family, yes. My friends and the people I care about but have no real right to...all of them I would ask Him to look for out and bless.

For me, though, I want to figure out how to reconcile who I am with...well, I don't know, really since I don't know how God personally feels about the feelings and thoughts I have...the things I have unintentionally done wrong and the things I have longed for that I shouldn't and can't ever have.

Happiness is wonderful and all those other great things, it's something so many of us aspire to and want, but it also seems so fleeting. Inner peace is much more realistic, but so hard to find on nights like these.

The common sense that slowly seems to be returning to me...I know I've been trying much harder to work on my emotions and other parts of my life...but I'd kind of like to think some higher force is helping as well...maybe it's the insomnia and isolation kicking in, but I don't think I want to live in a world where we're completely alone.