30

I lay awake, sinking into the typical nightly routine.

Thoughts. Scrambled. Different streams that intermingle and grow muddy. Even though my thinking has always been manic, I used to be so disciplined. I could direct my focus. But either my brain doesn’t have the same capacity it used to, or I have much more to try to keep ordered, or it’s a combination of both and all that remains is a tired sort of anarchy.

I used to think lots more about my writing. That would override everything else. Narrative would write itself in my head. But that voice is softer now. Or perhaps it’s not as insistent, or zealous. The problem is that while there are new voices, none of them speak with the same passion or determination. This is what happens when you dedicate your life to writing but reality doesn’t ultimately reconcile with your dreams.

I think about what I would do if I didn’t write, but there’s nothing there. Nothing commands my purpose. While I give everything I can to other endeavors – like work, or helping others out – neither feel as if they’re the reason I’m here.

But perhaps there is no reason, other than to exist. If that’s the case, is there any meaning then? There seems almost a redundancy to life if life’s not about living but existing. I don’t know if that realization results in a sense of liberation or hopelessness.

In the end, maybe none of it matters.

Maybe all we have is what we’re left with come the end of the day: ourselves.

And, right now, this is what I’m left with: the CPAP machine hissing away, pumping air into me; the ringing in my ears; the weary expectation that, eventually, I’ll find sleep. These are my nightly companions, friends who’ve overstayed their welcome, yet are impossible to evict.

Some people talk the good game about pursuing your dreams, about revitalizing your sense of self. Others just meander along, navigating life as it comes (and with all that means). Others try to be altruistic. The universe will provide, they tell me.

That one irks me.

The universe doesn’t give a fuck about any of us. Anybody who thinks it does is delusional.

Kids are dying of cancer, women are abused and murdered in shit relationships, there’s famine, war, death, and the universe will ignore bettering and/or fixing all that and instead provide you your material needs because that’s what it rewards.

The universe, apparently, is a mail-order catalogue of goodies answering only people lodging material requests.

If that’s the case, we’re all doomed.

I think about whatever happened last week, feeling like I left my body, and reveling in some noncorporeal liberation from earthly burdens, and yearn for that again. I can’t recall the last time there was no pain, no tiredness, no expectation. But I don’t know how I can find that again.

My breathing’s growing deeper, heavier, but grating in my throat. I’ve entered some realm of light sleep – it’s a peculiarity of my sleep issues that I’m aware of descending into and being in this state.

Neither asleep.

Nor awake.

Once upon a time, some spark of cognition would rouse me, and I’d wake and fall back into the cycle of trying to find sleep.

On other occasions, I’d drift off into oblivion.

But, nowadays, I stay here, in-between worlds.

In the limbo.