I was unable to sleep for seven days. A week, from one Tuesday to the next, with less than fourteen total hours of sleep; why is what you are probably wondering. Well, it’s a simple word with an insane number of connotations.
Death.
Just as my eyes would close, I would speculate about the end of life, which I cannot avoid and live in utter and total fear of. As a man who believes in God (I will go no further, because what else I believe in is none of your damned business), I have faith in an afterlife, a place with all the answers to my questions, and a sense of peace that I have felt on Earth in only a few spare moments.
But for the last week, I have wondered if I may be wrong. What if it’s just pain and then nothing? That thought is so terrifying that I am shaking, nearly crying, just thinking about it.
And it is totally, completely unavoidable. I will find out if I am right or wrong.
I would rather live forever. “But Zeep, what about all the loved ones who will die around you?” Well, I will miss them, but I am pretty good at making friends, so I suppose I will have new ones to love. It sounds cold, but it’s not like I will get a chance to find out if I am right or not.
I will not live forever. I will die.
My brother Bob passed away when he was 35, three years after he cleaned up from years of cocaine abuse. With a natural arrhythmia to his heart, the abuse caught up with him and he died. I am the same age as my brother when he sobered up. Like others who have lost siblings, death has a sense of immediacy with me. When grandparents die, they are fulfilling their role. They’re supposed to die; they’re old and therefore the perfect first lesson in mortality. But siblings are supposed to be as immortal as trees. They aren’t supposed to die until you’re going to die.
When you lose a brother or sister, your whole timetable on death gets skewed to a much earlier wake-up call.
There were other reasons for me not sleeping: I usually have a bout of insomnia at least twice a year, but not to this extreme; I am feeling really lonely and currently have teetering prospects for a date, and I am wondering if I should even bother since student teaching is just around the corner; my body is trying to get used to the weather and the blankets on the bed. But it’s the fear of nothing that keeps me up.
I’ve been taking Tylenol PM, which is definitely doing the trick. I am trying not to become dependent upon it, but the certainty that I will sleep, and have some really awesome dreams, is too much for me to stop just yet. It keeps the ghosts in the closet, which is all I want right now.
Well, a milkshake and a backrub would be nice, too.
-Zeepdoggie
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3 comments:
More than I can get into in a comment on a blog, but have you talked to a professional about all this? It's a common anxiety. Meanwhile, I'll tell you what my daughter's counselor told her when she was dealing with anxiety: what's your worst-case scenario, and work back from there. In this case, what if death IS the end?
Feel free to e-mail me if you like.
I have spoken to a professional; several, in fact. They tell me that it's something I just have to get over, to paraphrase.
I don't regret posts, but this one might just be the first. But it's out there now, so what can I do about it?
I am of course paraphrasing the good doctors advice. And the issue of my being wrong would make my faith meaningless; that would of course be an area of concern for me.
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