Or at least mine are, from time to time.

Today I had one of those afternoons. All I did this afternoon was get my ass kicked by terrible yet mandatory sleep that felt like it was trying to kill me, with occasional breaks to get up and pee… a LOT.

I think I am on the other side of it now. Maybe not totally out of the woods but definitely way past the halfway point. The trees are thinning and I can smell lilacs.

In fact, there is even a chance that if (when) I nap again after I am done blogging, that I will get one of my rare and precious beyond measure periods of actual, restful, peaceful, restorative sleep.

It’s a poor payment for an afternoon of being tortured in the dark, but it’s still very nice.

I was honestly starting to worry by the end of it. This attack was a lot more severe than usual. I felt like the life was being squeezed out of me. There was this feeling of heaviness and pressure, like I was on a high gravity planet, or maybe deep under the ocean where the pressure can crush steel.

And the sleepiness was so strong. I couldn’t do anything because my mind was so goddamned drained. I have a new game I was eager to play, but it was not in the cards for me this afternoon.

No wonder I have precious little trust to spare for the world in general. It does things like this to me all the time. My life might seem very sedate and safe but it isn’t.

It’s just that my dangers are all internal and lurk within the depths of my body and my soul, so they are easy to miss.

But on a metaphysical level, I live a life of constant danger, struggle, and stress. It’s like being in a jungle warzone all the time.

No wonder I can’t sleep properly.

And no wonder I get so damned tired sometimes. Tired of fighting and hiding and waiting and straining and fearing and fleeing and all the goddamned bullshit of this goddamned bullshit war.

Somone get me a goddamned ceasefire.

I would probably be better off with a way, way, waaay more relaxed attitude towards life. I feel like a big part of my problems is that I am constantly trying to force myself to be the way I feel I am supposed to be while another part of me, the defiant rebel part, fights back against that with all its strength and guile.

So it’s like a constant and highly absurd solo arm wrestling match.

If I could just get that angry, stubborn, controlling part of me to calm the fuck down and stop trying to force the rest of me to fit into its mould, maybe I could, in a relaxed and judgment free way, let things assume their natural, stress-free positions in my mind and then see where I can go from there.

Doesn’t that sound nice?

But instead, I am like my buddy Nietzsche, constantly at war with myself. There is no shortcut to peace for me. No matter what, I am doomed to get there through blood and fire and pain, or not at all.

And I have wasted a lot of time choosing the latter all the time.

So be it. I will let the fires of hell burn the impurities from my flesh. I will frog-march myself through the fetid swamps and fens of my own filthy existence. I will lance the boils and drain the sores and purge the toxins and do everything else so that I one day can be clean.

I just have to keep reminding myself that I am not my dirt. That cleanliness IS possible. That underneath all the grime and stinking filth, beneath the scabs and the pustules and the sores, way below the walking miasma that surrounds me is a good clean boy who is innocent and pure and counting on me to find him and rescue him.

I’m working on it, kid. That well you fell down is mighty deep and it’s going to take a long time to drill down to you. But we will do it. One day you will be free to walk in the sunshine again and get back to the important business of growing up.

So hang in there, kiddo. And enjoy the toys I send you.

I kind of feel like I am in Purgatory. Or, if Christianity bums you out, I am in my own bardo. Either way, I am going through painful experiences as a result of a spiritual journey to rid myself of my sins and attachments to my current life so that I may be reborn into the world free and clean.

At least I would like to think so. It is very human of me to want my suffering to mean something. To represent progress towards a goal. One that would justify the whole god damned shit show.

But for all I know, none of this means a goddamned thing and I am doomed to suffer in increasingly large doses until I die a pointless and pathetic death without ever having contributed anything meaningful to society.

And my epitaph will read, “Never has so little been done with so much”.

Yeah, well, all that potential don’t mean jack shit if you are too broken to use it. Like I said before, it’s like having a fancy car that doesn’t work.

It doesn’t matter that the thing COULD be amazing to drive. It ain’t going anywhere.

And really,  why would it matter what it could do IF it was fixed when it’s not likely to ever get repaired?

Maybe I would be better off abandoning the broken car and all the dreams attached to it and go in search of something mundane I can work with.

But I don’t think I can do it. Those dreams mean too much to me.

Guess I am stuck here forever then.

Might as well get used to it,.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow,.