Or at least it is when I am recently awoken and feeling like, during the night, someone replaced my blood with used motor oil mixed with the contents of a thousand ashtrays.
Now there is something I have seen disappear in my lifetime : ashtrays. They are victims of the highly wonderful trend of people simply not smoking indoors any more, and I am glad to see both them and the behaviour they enabled disappear.
I still bear the scars of a Seventies childhood filled with adults smoking like chimneys – it was mandatory back then – indoor and out, and poor little me acting like someone in a fire safety video, ducking down to get under the smoke so I don’t choke.
Seems like absolute madness now. And so uncivilized. Hard to believe that we used to just let anyone who felt like it put a constant stream of toxic smoke into the air we all breathe just because it was “normal”.
I mean, there used to be smoking and non smoking sections on AIRPLANES. Including ones that flew high enough that they cabin had to be pressurized and the air recirculated, so people got to breathe that smoke over and over!
Savages, man. We were all savages.
Well the good news is that the millennials barely smoke at all, so if I hang around long enough,. I might just live to see the tobacco industry go the way of the video store and the old school arcade.
That would be awesome.
Sometimes I feel so crappy when I wake up that I wonder if it’s worth it.
I mean, sure, consciousness is where it’s at, but I would definitely like to have the option of staying asleep till I can wake up feeling okay.
Kind of like the ultimate snooze button.
But alas, that is never an option. I am usually awoken by a need rather than waking up because I don’t need any more sleep.
Usually, it’s the need to pee or the need to eat. Sometimes it’s the need to get up and move around a bit.
And sometimes I wake up incredibly tense and agitated and it takes hours for me to calm down enough to even think about trying to go back to sleep.
Man, I hate that shit.
I keep telling myself that I should pick one of the days when I have a clear schedule (like Saturday, maybe) and just sleep and sleep and sleep until I am not sleepy any more and I can actually get on with my life.
But I am too worries that my depression would take that opportunity to keep me in bed for days and days and have me all to itself
Might be worth it if I am well rested at the end of it all. But I have no faith in the probability of that outcome. Odds are, I would just end up incoherent and confused and quite thoroughly lost at sea.
Hard to see that as progress.
Most of my power has always been…. latent.
I know for a fact that nothing in my life has come even close to drawing on my full capacities. I know that I am capable of so much more. Not just more than now – that’s a very low bar indeed – but more than most people can imagine.
Not in a “superhuman powers and abilities” sense. Probably. But in the sense of what I can put into motion and make happen.
I’ve always held so much back.. Partly because I feel like a giant among pygmies and I don’t want to hurt people with my full strength and power.;
But deeper than that, I am terribly afraid of losing contact with reality by going on some massive manic ego trip and getting sucked up into my own mind like Ziggy Stardust,.
I can feel the craziness in my head when I think about uncorking my bottle and letting the full genie of my intellectual gifts out into the world. It represent my perfect mirror image – far too confident where I am far too self-doubting, arrogant as hell where I am too modest, not concerned about other people’s feeling at all where I am, perhaps, too concerned with them and not concerned enough about my own issues.
And who knows, maybe after letting the pendulum finally swing in the other direction and letting the whole thing oscillate for a while,. I would calm down enough to be sane again, maybe even a lot saner than I am now.
It’s tempting. But for now, – right now – I am growing my ego slowly and carefully, treating it like a convalescent.
Which it is. It truly is.
And as much as any convalescent might tire of the sickbed and want to jump up and run to play outside in the sun, that doesn’t necessarily make it a good idea. IF theyu are not truly ready, they might make theoir illness a whole lot worse.
Then again, who knows? Might be the best thing for me. Maybe I am long overdue to get out of my sickbed and get on with my life.
But I sure don’t feel ready.
Still, my barriers are coming down faster than ever lately. The layers and layers of scar tissue and frozen emotion that have cut me off from the world (and protected me) are coming off and it’s only a matter of time before I finally emerge into the sunlight.
And I know that I am fearless. I will tackle any inner demon I find, no matter how scared or uncomfortable or sick to my stomach it makes me feel. I am well and truly sick of all this bullshit and only serious self-exploration will free me of it, and any temporary negative emotional experiences are irrelevent.
Bring it on. I have a lot of hate, rage, and bitterness powering me and I can’t wait to focus them on a truly healing task.
So make peace with your maker – that’s me – inner demons, because Papa’s coming home and there will be a reckoning.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.