It's difficult to eat these days. My stomach has caught up with my tattered brain and it's in a constant state of protest. Nothing sounds good, nothing tastes good, I truly don't want to eat at all. My stomach gnaws at me in this whiny inflection, nagging and nagging but then it is even more annoyed after I eat than when I was starving. I can't win.
These are the days where every hour ticking by on the clock is some kind of abstract accomplishment. Yes, ok, only a few more hours to go before this day is over, I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok. Pep talks just to make it past that next hour, then the next, then the next. This is how summers are for me every year. It's a struggle just to exist with my head above water. Just to exist is hard. Just to feed myself and breathe and bathe is hard. Being alive is hard.
I'm in an abusive relationship again. Maybe even two abusive relationships, I'm not sure, but definitely at least one. I've kinda shut down when it comes to my job. You know once you hit that peak, that climax of abuse where everything you do is questioned, and blame gets thrown at you like firey hot swords, and pretty soon you are so scared to do anything -- even the littlest, insignificant thing wrong that you're paralyzed. Every move is walking on eggshells, your confidence is shot to hell, and you just don't care anymore. You give up. Your fucks are tapped out. You're broken. That's where I am with my job right now. It's days like these past few where I am weighed down heavy with summer anxiety, the clock ticking away slower than I wish, where I could be working to help occupy my mind but I can't do it. I don't care anymore. I've had enough. I'm done.
My guts tumble, unsatisfied, all day. Unhappy empty and less happy full. I need change. I have a contaminated, sickly, rotting blob living between my ears that needs open space and lush, green grass, and quiet and genuine affection. I try to open the blinds in there, push the dark velvet curtains apart, take the cage off the windows, unlock them, tear open the screen with a razor blade, blow away the dust and cobwebs, peer out through tiny pin pricks of sparkling light, just to cut through the disease and see something else. Following a microscopic trail of breadcrumbs to get to the other side of this. Where in those tiny sparks of light lie ideas and dreams and other lives besides this one. I explore them in small bursts as they come before the next wave of dread washes over me. I'm ok, just a few more hours until the day is over, I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok. Another hour after this will be better, the next hour after that better still, then these hours build into days, and weeks, and not long from now it will be fall and I can breathe again. One hour at a time, one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time, I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok.
These are my summer days.
