I am extremely grateful for the times that I get to spend with friends, because this roller coaster that I call life reached the top of the tracks on Sunday night; and I’m just getting whipped every which way on the downhill plummet that appears to be the next two weeks...
I’m being vague about details, though, because.... of fear? Of privacy concerns? Or maybe just not much faith any more in Facrbook as a medium

There’s this discomfort in my brain
That wants to bitch, whine, and complain -
“Oh, no, Jody! Not that, again!!”

Part of me wonders
If that’s strengthened and fueled by
All the anger and injustice
Posted through my friend’s’ feeds...
“Do your soapboxes clean up the Earth?”

Yet, I do not want to be thankful,
Just because it’s today -
“Why not be grateful 24/7, year-round?”

...and I do not want my head
Wrapped up in phone apps, all day...
Will someone unwrap me,
And whisk me away, to play?

It’s 11:54 p.m., and I want a friendly conversation, yet I do want to be an imposition.
Hell, I’m not very sure what I want to talk about... maybe just babbling and blathering... and hoping that some strange magic falls into place and gives me a clear direction for navigating these holidays?
I want to voice these doubts, these fears. I want to be vulnerable, but I doubt 5 minutes would suffice. I suppose part of me wants clear validation that I am wanted... I suppose...
There’s some guilt, I suppose, in questioning you, as to the last time that you tried to honestly connect with me (beyond our Facebook likes and ha-ha’s, which so easily get lost in the shuffle)... there’s guilt, also, in reflecting the question, and asking myself, “when was the last time that I tried to honestly reach out to you?” (I know so much of my life gets sucked into big media, including all the bells and whistles of the internet.)
I know that I downplay what I could do, excusing it through lack of transportation and lack of finances. What, for many of you, is but a five minute trip in your car, becomes at least an hour trek for me, walking and bussing. What, for many of you, is a $20 purchase, without a thought, becomes the dilemma for me of paying that or paying for rent, but never able to do both...
So, now, I’m talking with myself, whistling the blues in the corner. Why does it have to be s conversation? Because it’s so much harder to gain a third-party perspective on my life, when there’s no third-party present?
I do not know what I’ll do next. Prudence says that I should just sleep it away; but that sure does sound like procrastination, too.

I laid down. Now, I regret the nap, because I feel...
“Cooped up in my house”
...without a car, and living 20 minutes deep into a residential zone, I feel suffocated by suburbia - like I’m cut off for the evening from friends and merriment, from variety through eating out.
I want to be distracted. I want to enjoy the evening. Instead, I have electronics or chores.
First-world problems...
I saw a great video about how we’ve become enslaved to our electronics, but then, it became a commercial for an electronic writing pad. My sense of betrayal was rather rough...
I feel like I’m pounding on my high chair, demanding that someone whisk me away tonight. I feel that my boredom is trying to kill me.

There’s some desire to get out of the house, to go to any one of multiple activities, tonight. Yet, I’m daunted by the trek, the possible costs...
And a piece of my soul that feels utterly defeated, that would rather cause harms to myself, or waste away, curled up in a fetal position in my bed.
I feel terribly alone, even in a crowd of thousands.
Yet, I’m also terrified of actually talking with anyone about the ambiguous anxiety... and so I remove myself, one space, and write about it, here...
And I leave my phone silenced, as I crawl under the covers...

I want a purpose for my life.

I want a purpose for my life.

I want to believe that my words and actions make this world a better place for all.

So, I try not to base how I interact on race or beauty or gender or age... all the protected classes that really say that our outward appearance has nothing to do with our inner selves. (Well, except people DO respond and start building their lives by how they’re treated by others, whether it’s adored or scorned.)

I try to remember to recycle, yet I also take measures to reduce my material waste. So, I would rather eat fresh produce instead of canned veggies, I would rather eat on a plate than have to deal with take-out bags and wrappers...

I do not claim to be holier than thou - I can see how I easily slip on “this or that issue”. I can especially see my deadening, my growing indifference to the “Big Issues”... a despondency born of hopelessness.

Yet, returning to the ground, what can I do, in my daily works, to spread happiness? Some say, “take care of thyself, first!” - meaning unhealthy lifestyles just help to propagate an unhealthy mind, a cynicism...

I heard today that “it’s important to entertain people”... I see a lot of tangents off that nugget, with some good and others bad. I once thought that at the heart of all comedy is some sort of harm. Yet, stories are such an important tool for people; because our ability to communicate some extremely complex ideas is probably at the heart of our ecological dominance - not tools, but telling how to use tools. For the time saved through instruction, especially mass instruction creates time that can be used in extending and exploring what the instruction means..? (Waxing philosophically, perhaps)

I want a purpose... I want to rise above the quests for food and shelter, and I want to nurture prosperity. I want to know the my friends and family (and neighbors and even unknown strangers) are benefitting in some way by the things I did today.

I do not want to be dragged by addiction, or left abandoned and scorned, or branded a lunatic who is best to be avoided... because all of that puts walls between you and I. The fear becomes tangible, as we fail to comprehend each other.

Yet, I see, laid out before me, so many scripts and so many models of living that I have to watch which script I read; if I don’t want to be cast as old-fashioned, or dangerous, or boring ... like all those before me who chose some subset of that set of scripts.

Simply: different people expect me to behave in different ways, when facing the same situation (because that’s how their father/boyfriend/etc did it)

In the ideal world, I want to greet each day with enthusiasm. Instead, I have constant anxiety.

Really. My soul is getting ground way by the sands of time...?

As of “right this moment”, “everything appears ok”.
Yet...
I create terrible futures that are crowding in on me. (One might claim they are my mind attempting to motivate me...?)
In the darkest, I have no control over this world; and we march steadfastly into authoritarian regimes raping the planet of every last resource, just to add a penny more to the bulging pockets of the wealthy few. Or we neglect our collective duties as custodians of this Earth and cook all life off of the planet, in just one generation.
Or... our collective insanity keeps growing by leaps and bounds, as we fear do not have “enough for our comfort”. The mass shootings keep escalating, the hatred and intolerance of “the others” (or quotation marks) keeps growing and getting expressed in harsher laws and more sinister bullies and harassers. We would push each other off of the cliffs, like lemmings.. ..just to secure our temporary peace of mind?
Fear is not a rational process. A threat reduces us to animal responses - the fight or flight, so often touted.
When faced with death, our mind grieves for itself, going through those stages of denial and anger and all the other ways it tries to cope with finite mortality. Our mind struggles to understand what it sees.
When I think of the world, at large, I get overwhelmed, and our approaching end seems so complete. So, I would deny it, and avert my eyes from the world problems, and try to come back to my 5 feet of space, around me.
And yet...
My skin keeps breaking out in bites and boils. My bank account keeps dwindling down to days of pennies. All of the bedevilments talked of in AA are snapping upon my heels. I see no prospect for a love leading to a family, no companions to care for me as my body begins to fall apart.
I stare at the bathroom mirror, in the morning, dumbstruck that I have to face another day of this slow time-bomb of death and decay...
I trudge through the workdays, serving hot dogs to the homeless in the past, or explaining equations as best I can, in the present.
The futility of it all. The desperation of drowning in our pool of half-consciousness... “nothing really matters”, for we have trapped ourselves -
When joy has left life, and there seems no joy in or beyond death... then the weight of each waking moment becomes truly terrifying.
Walking across an overpass, the desire to plummet over the rail...
The bewilderment, that I entertain these thoughts...!
The nihilistic frustrations that this life has no meaning... the horrible attempts to communicate how the fears can choke the joys out of the present moment.
Because I do not want to forfeit this fleeting joy to some foul circumstances that make my mind and body suffer so.
I do not want to be some casualty of our collective insanities...

I’m waiting for my weekly counseling; and I realize that I’ve given up hope, these last few years, on reaching out to talk with people outside of my day-to-day activities.
Way back when, I would spend most afternoons with my nepighbors, or write multi-page letters to distant friends. Every once in a while, I’ll get on the phone for an hour, with family members...
Still... having seen so few “results” or “reciprocation” from those efforts, I’ve just drifted into this mode of “long missives on Facebook” that gather only a couple of comments (even though part of the idea is to hopefully mass communicate)
Ah, vell... off to counseling...

“He blew his brains out, in the car -
He hadn’t noticed the lights had changed...”
(My attempt at quoting Beatles, from memory)
...for me, this evokes the image of someone committing suicide, even though the stressors in their life are no longer present. Considering it’s on Sgt. Pepper’s, in the late 60’s, the stressors could be eluding to the changing national politics of the time...
But, then, this could entirely be my attempt to create my angle on the story unfolding in the song. (Where we also have “woke up! Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head...” and the images of rushing to get ready and get to a job... [so no need to assume the lights are such grandiose issues like civil rights and the war movement...could be just a mental snapping at sitting in traffic too long]
—————
Yes, our elections of late may not have as dramatic of results as those on the polar ends would like; but they also have been swinging back and forth, as different marginalized segments exert their power to vote. Unfortunately, politics is rarely fast and rarely dramatic, when it is working sanely. I wonder, though, if we can still claim sanity for our current politics...
Then again, I could be just giving voice to the analysis claiming that our politics are becoming more and more polarized, leading to the alienation of the centrists.
—————
Not entirely sure what’s prompting this writing. I guess a feeling that anger and outrage, even if it’s believed to be justified, does not lead to good changes and solutions, and that governments move better by millimeters than by miles (because we don’t know what happens when millions are left in the dust)
——-
Not sure if that makes sense... still drafting this, as I write...

(Open Emote: Depressed)

I have been “shutting down”, since Sunday...
All the usual suspects: allergies, financial instability, lack of social contact, poor job performance(?),...
I can’t explain how or why I got to this dark place, or see a path to serenity - the fears are a choking cloud, making my mind dark and murky.
Last night, thoughts of self-harm and suicide plagued me, keeping me from a restful sleep. Today’s maybe a smidge better, but so many activities have already been discarded.
I’m tired of the constant hustle and struggle. I’m tired of living in unfulfilled wants and needs.
I’m tired.