Stressed

I am beyond stressed. I feel like I am suffocating. Not quite. Then I would not be stressed anymore. I take intermittent deep breaths, trying to pull relaxation, even a small amount, into my soul. It doesn’t work. I keep trying.

I have kept it together. Since things fell apart for me and I crawled out, not fully, but with an ability to function. Now everything around me continues to fall apart.

I have had many days when depression seemed to envelope and crush me. I survived. Not as many anxious days. Enough of them, however, that they became familiar again.

There are too many things. Each one enough to pull anyone under. Together seemingly insurmountable. I wonder if my recent horrendous battle with my mind has emboldened me to keep moving ahead. At just enough speed not to sink forever.

My three not so angelic angels propel me forward. Can propulsion be slow? It is painfully unhurriedly slow. It is speeding by – blink and you’ll miss it.

I am scared. Maybe just worried. It doesn’t matter which. I don’t know the difference. And it wouldn’t change the facts.

It’s how I imagine a car crash might be. Knowing you might crash. Hoping you don’t. Intermittent thoughts that you might not. That you will. It doesn’t stop though. You are or are not going to crash.

Life is livable. Ethereal. Pensive. Better life. When you forget for a few minutes the real, practical, worse life. You can’t crawl out of this one Ingo.

It would take some huge shift in life to get back on track. Becoming a famous writer. Make my millions. Otherwise I am unlikely to make enough for retirement. I hope my kids don’t feel obliged. I am the screwup not them. If I can even make enough to support my family now.

Right now I am sitting on my tailgate. I’ve been here for half an hour. I am paralyzed with stress. Unable to move. It is normal to be immobile due to depression. I hardly notice when and when I am. Anxiety is worse. So much worse. The second by second awareness of impending doom that never comes. Why doesn’t it come?

I was due to socialize. Panic came. No from that. From life. I canceled. Probably not the healthy thing to do. The socializing also not healthy. No right answer. We will see later. I need to see another human who cares. I need adult company.

My head gets mixed up. I thought a thing was today. It was not. It is tomorrow. I wonder what else I have forgotten. No idea. I could be told I promised a promise. I could only assume.

I am hollow. Life is hollow. The world is hollow. Everything is hollow.

On a quest to know myself. Is that possible? Can the quest be complete? Can anyone know themselves? A collection of emotions and behaviors, making the whole. I’ll never know.

I am a lost soul. Given time I wander aimlessly. Drive aimlessly. Pretend I have an actual destination. Turning back minutes after choosing a destination. Why is home so scary? Why can I not just be?

I should stop writing. I’ve covered all multiple times. My prose will not let me. It tells me to throw my diarrhea through my fingers, onto the keys, into the document.

I am generally unhappy around others. A few select others can infuse me with energy. Enough until we part ways. And back to my angelics… Sometimes I feel wrapped up in their arms and they in mine. Simultaneous. Physically impossible. Emotional wonderful. But God. It is so, so hard. The non-wonderful. The draining boring life. School. Laundry. Fights. Shouting. Crying.

When I am content alone, it is almost exclusively when I am writing, coffee in hand. Creative juices flowing. Pieces pouring easily out of me.

I’m in a donut shop. A cool, hip one. I see I am the only person on her own. People are talking in their little groups. I am genuinely confused. I used to be them. Thrive on them. That is gone.

TV. Friends. Family. Work. Walking. Cooking. Reading. Nature. Breathing. Eating. All in various stages of decay. Some falling further. Some stagnant. Some still crumbling. The illusion of improvement not precluding future collapse.

How do I come back? How do we come back? Our angels’ guardians. Together we toil to give them what they need, what they were on course to get. We have lost. Caused losses. Destabilized my loves.

I am going to try to wrap up. I don’t know how. I don’t think I can give this piece the summation it needs. There are no real conclusions. Like many things in my life, maybe it should just end. No warning. Just….