Cell Phone

While waiting for a movie, I wandered into a nearby bookstore. As I was browsing a shelf of new releases, I was distracted by a woman standing next to me. She was talking in a rapid whisper into what I initially thought was a cell phone. As I moved away from where I had been standing, I briefly glanced at the woman and suddenly realized that she was not speaking into a cell phone as I had originally thought. Instead, she was holding and speaking into her wallet as if it were a cell phone.

I thought this little incident was interesting. We have become so accustomed to people carrying on conversations via cell phones that we no longer notice or even question why someone is talking to thin air. We just assume that they are on the phone but I wonder how many are really just speaking to themselves.

“The sorrow of being alive…”

I came home early today for a number of reasons, not the least of which was a feeling of deep despair. When I arrived home, I put on the air conditioner, took a shower and made some coffee. I sipped coffee and finished a book I was reading by an author I discovered back in my early college days, Banana Yoshimoto. When I finished reading, I felt very confused, lonely and lacking in a sense of foundation.

I felt as if I had no gravity to hold me to the Earth and I began to cry and continued to cry quite extensively. I found myself repeating, over and over, “I want to leave. I want to find home.” Those were my thoughts along with a sense that I have no place here, not in my own house, not at work, not walking along the street. There is something terribly wrong.

I know that I shall have to see the Psychiatrist soon. Depression and anxiety have been visiting me with great frequency as of late. I know that some is related to my work situation but I fear that there is something more, something more far reaching and it frightens me.

I have always worried about insanity since my time in the hospitals and I have always known that it could visit itself upon me at any time. The frightening thing about it is that it creeps into one’s life in a slow and insidious manner. One does not just wake up one morning thinking him Christ or that Martians control his thoughts. Rather, it all starts slowly with depression, crying episodes, suspicious feelings and a growing sense of paranoia. It happens so slowly that it is almost imperceptible. Oddly enough, even once one becomes somewhat aware of what is going on, it is as if the illness has taken on a life of its own and it can no longer be so easily stopped or sublimated. I fear that is happening to me and I know things are getting worse even though I can still hide most of it. I just don’t know what to do anymore. What if there are no more drugs to help this? How many more years must I keep fighting this battle. I am so tired. I wish I could just have a tiny bit of peace, just a brief rest from this. If only that wish could come true.

Apart from things

Sometimes, the feeling of being out of place and out of synch is so overwhelming as to force me to question whether it is a figment of my own neurosis or something that is real, objective and measurable.

Today, while going about my business, the idea of being aloof from my surroundings was in the forefront of my mind. I feel apart from the world more and more and I sometimes wonder if I was ever supposed to be here in the first place. It is as if there were a play taking place and my character is not part of the cast, an accidental walk-on. I just wish I knew which play I belong and how to find the stage, cast and playwright.

So, I ended the day with a walk in the nature conservancy park that is located just down the street from my house. I wandered about and spotted a coyote wandering alone like me. He and I looked at one another briefly and then we went our separate ways. I like coyotes; they wander about alone and then sing of that solitude to the nighttime sky.

Tomorrow is another day at work and I really wish I did not have to go to the office. It is just one more thing that saps the life from me. I really hope that one of those Middle East job opportunities comes my way. I just don’t belong in the normal world. I have no illusions of finding my place over in a foreign land but at least I will not have to feel as if I am supposed to be at home. It will give me an excuse, a reason to feel lost and out of place. It would be a little like the days when I worked for FERC as an auditor and traveled 100% of the time. I didn’t love the job but, over time, I began to get used to being a short-term resident in the various Midwest towns in which I was assigned and made my residence. It allowed me the opportunity to see new places, new environments but I never fitted in with the locations and the people living there. It was okay, though because I had an excuse and I didn’t have to belong or care about belonging.

Unsettled

Well, after considerable complaining on my part, I have been allowed to transfer over to another area at work by the end of this month. I hope that this will be a positive move and will result in a better mood.

I am still keeping myself open to other jobs outside of the company but, in the meantime, I think I can at least stand it at work.

In other areas, I have had trouble sleeping over the last couple of nights. Last night, I was thinking about my parents and missing them. I also thought about friends that are gone, relationships lost and got sort of emotional, crying for a while until I could fall asleep. It was as if everything just hit me and it overwhelmed me.

I suppose all of the worries about work have lead to questions about life, what I am doing with it and my sense of dissatisfaction with the present.

It is hard to know what to do. There are so many things to address and I can’t even figure out what to do first.