Walking With My Demons (another text editor tirade)

 

Not gonna have time to edit this on the fly. Trying to maintain 3.5 mph.

Does it really help knowing anything? I mean, so I am aware that I am inventing my own triggers, reasons to feel sad, to elicit some kind of emotion from my lethargic skeletal shell; what difference does it make? It appears to be working, because I can tease out a bit of a reaction when I think about certain things, although it is getting harder.

For instance: Spirulina, the green seaweed supplement. My previous therapist recommended it when I was telling her that I really could use a lift. She said this stuff was like a natural anti-depressant. So I ran out and ordered some right away and started taking it.

So, naturally, when I take the stuff for a few days and notice no improvement, there is a bit of disappointment. Even though I didn’t invest very much hope in the idea that it was really going to help, it strengthens my position that I am pathetic and unhelpable. Plus, the bottle is running out, just like her time with me ran out, and things ending always leads me to a misty sentimentality. Over a bottle of Spirulina. Really?

This kind of reality manipulation takes a little work. I have to sell myself a story. The story can be very simple and have just a few elements in it. I’m normally quite receptive to the idea that I am a person for whom nothing ever works as promised. "All I want to do is feel good," I tell myself, "And see, I'm trying. I'm taking this supplement, and nothing is any better."

I tell myself that so that I can feel sorry for myself. Poor me. But the really sad thing is that I can no longer believe my own stories, even the sadness triggering ones. I am not falling for my own bullshit. I know I'm trying to create an emotion, in order to feel SOMETHING rather than nothing, and this knowledge kind of spoils it for me.

I have to walk faster. I'm trying to mprove my time from the other day. I made my walk in one hour, 31 minutes and 27 seconds. I won’t beat that record today. I've gotten a rock in my shoe several times, and I was accosted by puppies who jumped up on me and scratched my arm, causing it to bleed.

Other than that, I’m having a fine day. Just fucking fine. Another car is coming down this gravel road and is gonna leave me a nice fucking dust trail to inhale. Thank you very much, assholes. I have to retract that last statement. They slowed way down, waved at me and left no dust trail.

Now a German shorthair and his flock of teacup Papillon dogs are barking at me. I could spin that as a negative, too, except his tail is wagging a little bit. But I can make it work in my narrative anyway. I am still getting barked at. Even the friendly puppy dogs earlier, in their exuberance, caused me injury. I most likely will get poison oak from it as well. That’s what happened last time those cute little guys jumped on me.

And now, another rock in my shoe. Oh, and one of my toenails, which I just clipped the other night, has a sharp burr which gouged into my other toe, causing it to bleed. I try to prevent a problem and wind up causing one instead. And this motherfucking text editor is going to have me editing all night. Fuck you, Siri.

This is the real me, I guess, the bitter complainer and self-critic.

Walking by the Sugarloaf Farm, the place where the guy hosts an Airbnb for campers, I scan the place for campfires and don't see any. Apparently, he can get around the rules about no fires during the summer by claiming it to be some kind of personal cooking fire. But the zombie-tards that come up from the city just want to have the experience of having a fire. They know nothing of the risk that we take up here with wildfires. "Look it’s fun to have fires. Let’s fan the flames and see if we can make the fire get bigger." I seethe every time I walk by and see that orange glow.

I feel like I’m being held together by a bunch of angry thoughts about this and that, and that if I were to drop all of them, including my stories and all my prejudices, that there would be nothing left. There would not be some inner core of joy, some inherent good or spark to be found inside of me; it would just be emptiness, blank and void of anything.

I simply can’t paint with light colors. I can weave a narrative that casts me as the villain, the victim, perennial loser, the Charlie Brown, always shit upon, the Rabbit who never gets the Trix. Never the beloved hero, always the black sheep, the uninvited guest, the demon cowering in the corner.

Like right now with his goddamn text editor misinterpreting every fucking word. You’ll never know; I’ll edit it. Meanwhile, another wasted walk, stewing in my own juices. How else can I berate myself? Let me count the ways.