Armamentarium

For a while now I’ve been thinking about doing a series on … well, getting back on course, I suppose.

Personally, I’ve been in limbo for a long time now. Going on a year, actually. A year ago I was in very desperate straights. Nothing seemed to be going right, nothing seemed to be going my way, and unbelievable, barbaric pressure seemed to be building beyond tolerance on all sides. I was stuck, and this being stuck was the scariest thing of all. I felt optionless. It was so terrifying I was praying for a way out, any way.

Remember the movie Goodfellas? Remember towards the end, when Henry is doing this and that and everybody is giving him something to do, and he’s thinking there’s a cop behind every tree and he even thinks that helicopter is following him? Yeah, he was loaded up on drugs, but I wasn’t doing much better. Well, Henry has to drop off some chick at a hospital, I think, and the doctor sees him, and says, “Hey, you should stay here and let me take a look at you!” Henry’s at the breaking point, and the physical and mental exhaustion screams at you like that Edvard Munch painting. I used to look in the mirror and see that look, too: the day’s-growth of beard, the sweaty complexion, the cavernous shadows around the eye.

I won’t go into my physical difficulties of a year ago; that’s been covered ad nauseum in these posts. But I was trapped in a high-pressure, low-pay, dead-end job with no relief in sight. Indeed, I was spending most of my off-hours in search of relief. I was drinking like a fish. I was eating anything that had sugar as its prime ingredient. I was staying up later and later into the early morning hours, searching the web, searching through books, searching for anything that would bring me relief. My family needed me – especially a four-month-old Patch – but I hadn’t the strength to be there.

So, February 2009 happened. And I’ve been in an eleven-month stretch of limbo ever since.

Now it’s time for a jump start.

This next week or ten days will really be for me, but if you’d like to join me on this little thought-experiment, you are welcome. Starting tomorrow I want to get as much out as I can, on e-paper. I have but a road map, so I’ll be fleshing it out as I go along.

And the road leads to … peace of mind, I suppose. That’s the ultimate destination.