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INSOMNIA

7 April 2008, 01:00

Really. Now. This is getting old. I don’t mind being up at night, but, don’t I need sleep? Won’t I start hallucinating giant pink elephants doing the mambo with Jimmy Hoffa in the living room? I know how to fix it, I know if I can find the thoughts that keep me up, I can get sleep. I just can’t. I don’t know what’s keeping me up.

I have one week left. It’s so odd. It’s an odd feeling being a lame duck in your own life. This sounds really strange, but things haven’t gone badly yet, and I guess that scares me. Nothing has gone south, or has become some sort of crisis. I’m increasingly worried about that. I almost prefer that because then it means I have something concrete to work on. How do I know if I’ve forgotten about something or not done something if there are no emergency lights or harried calls to a lawyer or realtor or the police?

I ain’t that smart. I can’t have had taken care of things up to this point. It just doesn’t happen like that. If I did, then that scares me even more. I was grown up enough to do that?

I’ve looked at finances yesterday, and despite myself (and almost everything is despite myself or my natural instinct) I’m okay. Not great, but okay. I’m becoming more restless and I don’t know how to deal with that. I got bored last night and dropped by a local bar to pick up a pool game. All I wanted was a couple of beers and a pool game. Had the local shark play me, and actually won a game or two against him. He said I had a good stick. It was a nice compliment because I really haven’t played in years. Against regular people, I can hold the table for a couple hours, and against him I won a couple, so it was at least activity. I thought maybe that and the beers would cause me to be sleepy, but nope. It became loud and unbearable, so I went home. I’ve become too old for a lot of that, but not too old to enjoy a good pool game. I’ve been trying to sleep and waking up every hour, and now I’m just up. This, too, shall pass, but being in the midst of insomnia is like being in the midst of drowning I think. There’s a point where you know you’ll start to swim to shore but you haven’t yet. And that’s where I am.

This hasn’t been a really insightful entry, more mundane than I like to write. Lately, at least here, I haven’t really brought the entertaining or funny. I’ve engulfed myself in the morose and maudlin. But, I am a soldier walking home from the battle. Torn, tattered and shell shocked. I fight, and I live to fight another day. I wonder if there will be a break from the conflicts, but then I wonder would I know what to do with myself if I didn’t have anything to fight against? I try and nail down concrete things:

- I know I’m tired

- I know I’m more alone now than in a long time.

- I know that this is going to be a test of my own strength and resolve.

- I know I’m missing something.

- I know I love to laugh.

- I know that I love to be angry. Or at least exasperated.

- I know if I keep cutting my hair, I’m going to end up looking like
Billy Ray Sirus, circa 1990.

- I know that this has to be my path.

- I know I’m not stupid.

I think the funny will come soon. I think the sleep will come soon. I think the second life will come soon. And I think I need shower. Hopefully, life gets better after a hot shower. If it doesn’t, then I’m in deep shit, Sherlock.