March 18, 2016

Stream of Consciousness, 3/18/16

By Daniel

It’s no small concern of mine that nobody is asking me for a house-buying license during the process of trying to find a home in Santa Fe. At what point was I mentally capable of processing the reality of a 30-year mortgage? When was the class on repairing the myriad items and components that make up a domicile? I missed it. I missed a lot of classes, though. That’s not a big surprise.

That we collectively decided that agreeing to terms of payment on the next 30 years of life is odd. If you’re in a position where you need a mortgage, you’re also not in a position to guarantee that things will be just as good 30 years down the road, really. Hell, getting into state government is one of the safest possible choices in that regard, once you’re in and off your probationary period getting fired is a battle. Things could happen, though.

We’re looking at two more houses tomorrow, we’ve had an offer in on a different one for over two months now, but they weren’t lying when they said it was a “short sale opportunity for the patient buyer.” One is more “homey” and with a great location, a ten-minute bike ride to work if that. The other looks ridiculously nice, like in the realm of “What the hell? I get to live here?” kind of nice. So it appears in the pictures, anyway. Maybe it’s actually a small house photographed by a smaller human, or an iguana.

I was a little bit bothered a few days ago when someone mentioned that they were diagnosed bipolar and one of the markers was having days where they just stay inside and hide from the world, for lack of a better description. That was me not terribly long ago, and I’d like to tell myself that at least I’m not bipolar. But I was a real mess, it seems at least plausible.

I had a weird thing happen last night, and I think it’s the second time it’s happened in as many weeks but only the third time I can remember. I was trying to get to sleep, which was problematic as I took a rather long nap after the CT scan that I wrote about. But all of a sudden, I started feeling really hot, started sweating, and my heart was beating like crazy. The first time this happened, I ended up making my way to the bathroom just in time to vomit for the the first time since I was an 18-year old college kid drinking way too much whiskey. So it freaked me out when I had the same feeling, but not the same result. Just took all the blankets off and cooled down for a few minutes. I don’t know if it’s something to worry about or not.

With this piece I’ve written 3 articles today, the first time I’ve managed that in quite a while. While I’m not clear what I’m getting out of it, it does have a bit of a centering, therapeutic quality. I seem to be able to write out my problems in a way I would never be willing to articulate. I was thinking about this last night when trying to sleep, there’s a disconnect in writing that lets me take those walls down. If pressed how I was doing in the hallway, I’m not likely to offer much beyond “fine, thanks.” But when I’m taking a backseat to that part of the brain that is really keeping tabs on things, I could spend an hour just writing about the fear that I might let myself slip into a lifestyle of slovenly, apathetic nihilism if given a chance.

I keep telling myself I’m going to exercise more as it gets warmer out. Well, it’s fucking warmer out now, isn’t it? It’s 72 and sunny outside. What’s the excuse gonna be today? Not feeling it? Wrong shoes? Haven’t eaten? Just ate? Too early? Too late? Too clever to perform some basic, overdue, preventative maintenance on the one fucking body I’m gonna have? Too complacent to improve my mental and physical health? It’s fucking horseshit. Listen. I’ve said this before. Complacency will fucking kill you. Why does it turn into this big a deal every fucking time?

That’s really the fucking worst part. I’ll know good goddamn well I should be out on a run, or doing some resistance band training, or going over to Dave and Buster’s to play on a fucking great PIU cabinet. But I don’t, I’ll sit on my ass and look at my Steam library, look at reddit, get off reddit, look at the Steam library. Didn’t actually end up doing anything with that time, and I feel miserable even in the moment. What the hell kind of enjoyment was that wasted time, really? It’s in those moments that I feel myself aging, feel myself dying, and I’m letting them come to pass. I have the ability to prevent those moments, to alter the narrative mid-passage. That’s real power. Why let anything else win?

I gotta put an end to that.

I’m averaging 1500 words an hour given that all of the above has been written in under a half hour on the train ride so far. If this IT thing ends up not working out I still feel like I could make a…something, out of writing. I mean, nobody’s paying for this, hell I don’t even run ads. But I enjoy the feeling of getting into a stream of consciousness and knowing that whatever comes out is more honest than just about any other way I could express myself.

I’ve been using a minimalist writing platform called OmmWriter. Since I write everything in Markdown anyway, I don’t need anything but a blank slate to write on it. It serves that purpose very, very well. It even includes some ambient music. It’s a novel little piece of software, obviously a labor of love.

For so long I thought I was talking into dead air with this platform. I don’t know why that ever mattered. It turned out to be wrong, too, if I had bothered to look at the traffic stats. But it shouldn’t have mattered. Diana keeps a diary. The business of externalizing problems is one we have in common, but I’m fine with making them a matter of public record. I’m not running for fucking Mayor anytime soon. And maybe I’ll end up reaching someone that didn’t realize that they weren’t the only one feeling a certain way, going through a certain mental problem. I was lousy to a lot of people. A lot of people were lousy to me back. But being a decent person sometimes involves throwing a life-preserver to someone you’ve never met or thought of because you have one and it’s the right thing to do. It’s one thing to offer the platitude that “everybody hurts,” and it’s another altogether to really come to terms with it. There really shouldn’t be any reason for someone to feel alone in this world. Maybe this will help. Maybe I just want to play a hero on TV. But does there have to be altruistic reasoning for everything?

I feel like I’m atoning for something as I write this. I don’t know what. If I figure it out, I’ll let you know.