Insomnia

The splendor of insomnia hits me in the wee hours of this night.   I get up to check my phone, no messages. I look in the fridge, the light hurts my eyes. I pet the dog, she growls.  This night is against me it seems and yet wants me to keep it company.  There is no moon to speak of, no crickets, no reason to be awake.  I feel creative though and this is something powerful and rare for me since growing up brainwashed me.  I decide to write, to let my mind spill onto a page in hopes of breaking the loops of thought trapped in there right now.   

I am in therapy, ten months now.  A feat for me, as I think of mental health as a luxury, something reserved for those with painted nails and fringe bangs.  I have even become something of an advocate for ones personal journey of growth, having convinced several of my good friends to start having the best conversations of their lives as well.  Unfortunately this has blown up in my face.  Two of the friends I recruited into therapy are progressing much more quickly then I am. This leaves me with two possibilities: (1) my therapist sucks or (2) I suck.   I was really hoping (1) would stand out but as it turns out I am more emotionally stunned than most, in other words?  I suck.

I have yet to cry, have any sort of epiphany or an emotional breakthrough of any kind.  I decide I need to approach my therapy the way I approach snowboarding, face down the mountain, close my eyes and push off into the unknown, the uncontrollable.  And I will do this; later of course all of a sudden I am very sleepy. 

As I lay back down on my pillow I remember how I often wondered as a child if I was an alien, or perhaps much worse, -the only human- and if when I turned my back, my parents, my sister and the lady at 7-11 all reveal their secret green skin and large soulless eyes while I squeezed mine shut.  A symptom of “brain freeze”, drinking one’s slurpee much too quickly.  I laugh, recalling my vivid imagination and although I know my therapist would tell me it was all a much deeper feeling of alienation amidst a family breaking and my childhood taking a back seat to the tension and fights, I can’t help but pull the blankets up under the lids of my eyes, just in case she too submits to her green shell in my absence.

Mornings have always been a problem for me.  I never manage more than an hour here and there at night and my alarm is a loud reminder of the pain in my head and my heavy legs.  I whimper and dress and make my way out into the world to run the errands that keep my mediocre existence, well, mediocre.  I almost wish I was an alien, something, I could dabble in UFO mechanics in my spare time or learn the language of my people.  No, no instead I have been reduced to this, standing here at the bank wicket absorbing the wisdom of finances from my teller. She is a woman I see once every two weeks as I make my deposit for another round of hand to mouth living.  She is a beautiful woman, a mother for sure.  It doesn’t matter what she is lecturing me about the values she is trying to instill in me, albeit financial ones, are comforting.  Kids need boundaries, rules and values and at some point I was a kid and I missed out on this fascinating rearing so, I gather it where I am able.  I am angry though, angry I have been brought to my knees this way.  I am a beggar.  I am well disguised in my business casual slacks and my Gucci wire rimmed reading glasses, but I am not a full functioning adult I am stuck in some sort of stage Piaget would salivate over as Pavlov took notes.  

Back in her office, I notice the couch has been moved closer to the window, maybe an inch or two.  I decide this must be a symptom of a lazy cleaner, someone who moved the couch to vacuum and then decided that was enough for one day.  I shake my head in disgust, forgetting she is waiting for me to take a seat.  We get about fifteen minutes into my abandonment issues and attachment dysfunction when I just can’t take it anymore,

“Who moved the couch?”  

“No one moved the couch,” she replies with not a hint of judgement or wonder. 

“No, no, the couch has definitely been moved, I am closer to the window and further from the coffee table, do you think we could slide it back a bit?”

“Of course.”

I am on my way home now and planted deeply in my head, in thoughts of my $120 fifty minute session on how to attach to other people with my heart and mind and less my crotch.  Who would have thought?  I do so well using my methodology but I am good like that, always open to trying new things.  I stop and pick up soy cheese and yogurt on my way home.  

As I near my house I feel relief I couldn’t be more exhausted.  I am not complaining of a long or difficult day but a day on little fuel.  I rarely remember to eat, there are certain things I see as a waste of time and this is one of them.  Along with eating there is cuddling, crying, television and discussions consisting of the existential.  I would love to know how people find the time to ponder questions like whether the apple is truly on the desk or my other favorite, whether we are actually awake or just dreaming we are.  Can you eat the apple?  Are you sleepy?  Then my guess is the damn apple is truly on the desk and you are awake.  I am aware that a lot of my anger stems from the questions proposed by Rene Descartes.  I try to avoid getting worked up about it though as I am sure being asked to leave Epistemology 101 by the bald man with chalk on his cheek is a likely contributor to my strong feelings on the subject.  

I can see the moon from my front living room window it’s full and bright and I wonder if my blinds will be enough to curb the light that’s sure to be pouring itself onto my pillow as I hope to be, just as soon as I brush my teeth.

I have always said venetian blinds were about as effective as Rene Descartes’ life.  I worry for society whose modern philosophy is built largely on the meditations of a man whose ideas rose in a bread oven to which he often confined himself.  In this way, venetian blinds leave me concerned.  Who decided we should fit every home with custom strips of plastic precariously held together with string in hopes that it may shield the light entering our homes?  This was never how I saw my life playing out.  I don't know that any child imagines that one day they will need an "emotions" list from their therapist simply to articulate the gap inside themselves that keeps the heart from talking to the mind.  It is sad really.  I hate that look I sometimes get from my therapist, the one that says her heart is bleeding for me and not just because I am her meal ticket.  It lets me know just how bad it is, a professional who has seen it all just realized she hadn't...at least not until now.  Who do you blame in the end?  Your parents?  The apple that isn't on the desk?  Or you?...... 

At the end of the day it is neither here nor there I suppose, the question becomes what are you going to do about it.   I will figure it out;  later of course.....all of a sudden I am very sleepy.