reckoning

At 4:30 this morning, I couldn't breathe. I sat up in bed, mind foggy with the tail end of a dream, and coughed for what seemed like an hour. Then I struggled to find myself in the comfort of sleep again, trying to ignore whatever was wrong. It didn't work. In my restlessness, I ended up on the couch. I laid there the rest of the night, listening to crickets and cars driving past in the world outside the window. The trash collector came by at some point, breaking the relative city quiet with the subdued thunder of the large metal garbage bin. My cat sang a song to something I couldn't see, clicking and chirping with the intensity that only a crepuscular animal can have that early in the morning. Richard came downstairs ready for work and left the house. I just stayed on the couch.

Today a friend sent me a song about loneliness and working on and on until you're old and wasted and used up and your body just stops. Almost everyone I know is hashing out this problem right now - I guess we're just that age. Why does the future seem so bleak when our lives are really just beginning? The longer I'm alive the more I feel trapped, the more it seems like the most enjoyable times are already behind me, the more restless I get. I think growing up is unfortunately sad.

I've been on the couch all day. The cats have been sleeping, curled up, lazily stretching and purring. If they can find happiness within the tight confines of this apartment, then it can't be too much of a stretch for us to find it in the confines of a job, a few nights at the bar, and a few good friends, can it? I try to take the comforts where I find them and remind myself that I'm only as trapped as I'm willing to be.

grey and grey and grey

For the last two days, everything has been grey. The fog closed in around our building yesterday, truncating the world and containing it within a half-mile dome. I imagined the block an island, cars below me on the highway disappearing into unknown waters, our building the only beacon of a small civilization. When it got dark, UFOs hovered next to the roadways, orange otherworldly light illuminating the fog around them. It was almost eerie how still the fog made everything. When day gave way to evening (much earlier than it felt it should), the world felt even smaller. Driving home I could hardly see the usually bright neon signs on building tops and brake lights in front of me appeared disembodied.