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February 10, 2009Well, I didn’t wake up dead.I take that as a good omen.ALIVE IS A GOOD WAY TO START THE DAY.I know and everyone knows you’re not supposed to take alcohol with medication, but it was 1:00 in the morning and I didn’t have any heavy machinery in my immediate future; I figured I’d leave my pile driving for the morrow. Just some casual wine drinking, but I haven’t been sleeping through the night, and often when that happens I sleep the day away instead, so I had a swallow of wine left in my glass, and used it to gulp down a Xanax, a little gift from God that sweeps over me like warm ocean waves and unties the knots that cramp my style. In bed, though, I thought, well isn’t that classic, alcohol and tranquilizers, is that my idea of a nightcap? Not recommended. I think they’re talking about a whole bottle of tranquilizers and a fifth of vodka, but why tempt fate? Anyway it was done and I was lying there, not sleepy but body-tired and not wanting to get up, thinking, should I go flush my system with water? Should I put my finger down my throat, should I keep myself awake? But all I did was lie there with my hand on Zazu’s head, thinking, what if I wake up dead? And then I fell asleep, and woke up alive. USUALLYI don’t worry about my future because it’s up to me to create it, but there are always those circumstances that are out of our control, and the truth is, I myself am sometimes the circumstance that’s out of my control, and I had a spate of anxiety about that. Sometimes it would take a crane to lift me off the couch, where I spend the entire day shielding myself from…whatever it is I might have to respond to. I can admit only cats into my sphere. It was really bad when I worked full time, I spent entire evenings and weekends in stasis, but even with my hand-hewn schedule, I acknowledged long ago that whatever my plans or aspirations, there are days when I can’t move a muscle, and I need to cut myself a break. That’s one reason I live alone. Who the hell wants to live with someone who can’t get off her butt, regardless. Someone who loves me, I guess, someone who understands. But where is he? Somewhere in my train travel journals I remark that my least favorite facet of train travel is passing through a tunnel in a mountain in the middle of the night. Sometimes that’s what life feels like. Nevertheless, I’m glad I woke up alive. Don’t take it for granted. Every day is another gift of life. A GOOD FRIEND’S MOTHERhas lost her sight. It is the result of a medical condition and was completely unexpected. In this life, it is wise to expect the unexpected, but nevertheless one can’t emotionally prepare oneself for a given specific outcome. As I once put it: Life is fraught with rogue waves And you never know when one will come So sisters and brethren prepare thyselves For the undoing of all you have done THAT HAPPENS.That has happened. Shit happens. Shit happened to every Katrina victim, to every tsunami victim, with hardly any warning. Life as you knew it is over. You’re lying on a beach, and the ocean rises and covers you. Shit happened to my friend’s mother, and my friend. Shit could happen to me, too. I sold a house, I sold a flat, to live my dream. If I don’t live up to my own expectations, if I am the condition I can’t control, I could end up broke and in need of job, and of health insurance, and of medication, and on the street, raving. That’s the height and breadth and depth to which I imagine the extremities of my life can reach. Considering this, I actually had the thought, “I could always kill myself.” THAT IS BRUTAL, UNACCEPTABLE.I wipe my slate clean of that nonsense. Nothing, most especially myself, has the right to deprive me of life until God disposes. As depressives often chastise themselves, “some people have real problems.” I have my sight, my health, my life. Don’t ever, ever wish it away! At the same time, I am subject to melancholia. My mother has been researching bipolar disorder on the web, and wants me to apply for Social Security disability. That seems…extreme (I am high-functioning), and yet I was forced to quit my job before I got fired. I know what it takes to work full time, and I know I no longer have what it takes. Therefore I must cultivate my writing, the only calling that jibes with the aberrations of my personality. It’s a little bit of a tight-wire. “You’re one person,” my shrink assured me. But it doesn’t feel like it. There’s the I who is capable of great things, anything (the writer); the other who is capable of nothing (the couch case). [The author has a peccadillo of hating false positives, but sacrificed it to the parallel structure of the preceding sentence. What she means is, “the other who is incapable of anything.” –Ed.] That has been my dream, to integrate into one person anyone could say they know. MY MIND IS A MERRY-GO-ROUNDbut not always so merry. Still, it goes round and round, and for that, I am grateful.
The author’s mind’s eye ------------------------------------------------------------ Sitting here thinking
My prayers with you, J and D. Love and hope to you. copyright Alexandra Jones 2009 |
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