PollyAnna Nightmares

Dark night of the mind. A heathen despairs in the face of too few words to evoke the sleepless unfolding of that chemical, electrical stew that is the brain and can no longer prevent the emotions trickling, then spilling out and out and out onto the pillows. There is no soul, only sole, the most desolate of the two. Now there will be no sleep for even this most devout dreamer. It is a perpetual motion machine, with cogs whirring, brain ablaze, hamster wheel turning, electrons firing, despair and frustration throwing themselves against the walls of why did you allow yourself to dwell on the tide you've been holding back for so many years? My face is tense, I don't let it all out. I want someone to get some sleep, even if it can't be me. To be in bed and not sleep or nearing it is anathema. I don't understand real insomnia, except dimly on these occasions. Tiredness is not part of the equation, unless you count the mental weariness of damming up the occasional swells and sucking mud of moderate despair. Moderate. Not knife wielding, tailpipe breathing, bullet eating despair. Not the kind that creates a public stir or sends you home in a basket. Moderate. This seems obvious. No great American dramas are formed from moderate despair, only the grand or the grindingly lifelong, overarching kind. They all consume at some level, but some are more wearing. Again, I can only imagine the deeper., can't get my face off the floor or outa the basement noose. Or so I think.

I start to wonder about my DNA, like some college friends' obsession with alcoholic parents and their thinking they will fall to addiction through bad genes only. Two "wacky" grandmas in their own ways, each seeming relatively sane in most of the contexts in which I ever knew them and yet ever so faintly off. Seems like whining. Like a poor excuse for not sucking it up. Doesn't feel like it though. Even so, the possibilities recline there in the back of my scrambled feeling brain, like some horrible meme or jingle that won't leave, and just huddles in a corner, rocking and smiling idiotically. Just there.

Evil humors. I can very much see in these moments how religions take hold. And yet I still do not understand. It does not make anything feel better. Never has. Although, you could argue that since it is not there it doesn't have the chance to. Some supernatural power! Not even enough to make an eleven year old believe in it. Even when I was a kid, and my best friend's family went down in their small plane, and I ventured a prayer (what else was there to do?), I knew it was a waste of time. A waste AND it didn't make me feel better. AND I felt like a grade A hypocrite (ok, so maybe only a grade B; after all, I was only a sixth grader). So much for comfort and hope. I suppose there's equal mental illness among the religious as irreligious. Maybe more in the former, I suspect, but likely unrecognized (you know…hand of god and all). Whatev', to use a "word" I absolutely hate, and yet find vaguely amusing due to its clear declaration of "I don't give a fuck" in a single faux word. Just enough of the word to demonstrate you just don't care, with a chaser of disdain. Ahhhh…not at all refreshing. Like this distressing lack of sleep with its distressing, isolating, lonely thoughts. I could really chew some scenery right about now if my stomach didn't feel like it was about to eat itself instead (and that is not a happy feeling either).

Even though it seems even more important to take a sick day in this instance, I'm pretty sure it's not contagious. At least not in this form. It might cause other variants, of course, to have to witness the effects, experience the downer, or mutate, possibly eliciting a "Why can't you be more upbeat/positive?" Or some other more passive aggressive response. "Because, I have brainless Pollyannas all around me to show me the error of that way of being!" These are the ones who never seem to do the paperwork or documentation. Maybe that's it, you chirpy no-paperwork mother-fuckers! If you don't understand Dilbert and laugh, then not only am I truly sorry for you for that loss of comedy options, but you have obviously lead a charmed and/or non-corporate life, or you are twenty and this is our first real job. I hate you. Fortunately, those two feelings cancel each other out. I think.

It sounds like it is raining out. Just in time for a 2:00am closer.