Forever Wandering
How often I think about all the things I want to do. The tasks I want to complete, one by one. The games I want to finish. The software I want to install on my web server and VM host. The Anime I want to catch up on. My Cayman, sitting neglected in the garage in need of having its bumper cover restored, among other bits and bobs.
Even the time I want to set aside for meditation is just another thing on the list to fit into a day where there simply isn’t enough time. And even as the world of 2020 falls down around me, slowly ebbing away at the precarious stability of our society until it reaches some impossible crescendo of plagues, social unrest, controversial politics, and other unlikely coincidences, I plod along with my usual worries and plans.
Even after four years of sleepless nights, growing steadily more exhausted and incoherent, I persist in my walks around the neighborhood. It’s how I think; how I’ve always thought. The solitary pacing I’ve done forever, which has led to many suggesting I make even them feel restless.
So much to do. So much to explore. So much to learn.
Not enough time. Never enough time.
Do my legs hurt because of my standing desk, or because of some as yet undiscovered health malady, of which I also constantly worry. I’ve long since allowed my anxiety to take over my life, and I don’t even really know when it started. When my amygdala precisely began an uncontrollable metamorphosis into disaster.
How frequently will I remember that single day in my mid 20’s where I inexplicably felt a contentment so profound, literally nothing could adversely affect my mood or outlook. I haven’t reached that point again since, but then again, have I really tried? Have I simply allowed myself to be carried along by the current of fate, given that things were basically going fairly well?
Maybe. Probably.
But I’ve abandoned so many things that I once thought defined who I was. My posts on my Blog fell to the wayside. My wildly exaggerated rants forgotten. I’ve not said anything about what some would consider major milestones. Not my move to another town. Not when I purchased a 2007 Porsche Cayman S after literally months of research and a lucky find on Facebook.
I even stopped reviewing games. Reading books.
What have I done instead? I don’t even know. I feel like my life essentially ended four years ago when I stopped sleeping well after tapering off my Lexapro. Sure, I wouldn’t have even been on that if something weren’t already deeply wrong in my life, or at least my perception of it. I’m terrified I’ll never escape the aftermath of that awful prescription, as my hormone systems continuously falter in the absence of proper chemical signaling wrought by neurons so constantly bathed in serotonin that they pruned receptors.
And I did it all to myself because this world has no instruction book, no guide except by equally confused and beleaguered brethren trying to make sense of it all. I’m even painfully aware of the subtext of pessimism and melancholy in these very words, for that is what I’ve always fostered. Of the two wolves in my mind, it is the one I’ve fed the greatest of feasts. My optimism is so withered away, starved by neglect, that I’m unaware I have any at all.
I can try, though. Coax that battered and ravenous animal from its oblivion perhaps only slightly. Toss it a scrap or two while it regains its strength. I’ve never really been one to think positively, but maybe on occasion I can break from the norm. It’s not like the constant aura of doom and gloom has done me any favors, after all.
Until Tomorrow.