Usually I try to ensure that even if it’s the dead of winter, I get outside. I tend to go stir crazy being indoors all of the time, trapped in a square with nothing but the same stimulus over and over again. Just a blasting television, a stereo playing something, a small heater running, and about ten projects splayed out in various places. My desk is such a wreck that I’ve given up on finding anything. I throw my scraps of notes all over it, then snatch at them later when I need them for reference. I tried keeping a journal full of them, but eventually, that too got lost, under the pile of doodles, all the sewing machine paraphernalia (one of the ‘projects’), and all the random paint tubes that get scattered around by my cat.

He just leaps on top of it all, fairly unconcerned with whether or not he is thoroughly destroying everything. He’s cleared a spot by my computer by shoving everything out of the way. He sits there staring, literally for hours on end. Looking at me. I feel like I’ve said this before. The cat doesn’t even lie down, just sits there uncomfortably. Every time I look over (which is usually unintentional, as I’m searching for something), he meows. He’ll then wait for me to make eye contact, and if I do, he continues to meow like we’re having a conversation. My mother keeps asking me if I’m talking to someone. Yeah. I’m talking to the fucking cat sitting on my desk, watching me.

But I’ve been sleeping so much, today I finally got fed up with myself, got dressed, and finally went for a walk after about a month-long absence. I think it was driving me crazy, being inside. Feeling trapped, caged, with the same people day after day. There’s a worn trail on my carpet right in front of my television where I pace like something gone mad. Hours. Pace, pace. That habit hasn’t stopped, no matter how much I’ve tried to work on it over the years. It keeps getting worse. But it helps calm me down. My mind goes and goes and goes, never stopping. I can’t find solace, I can’t find rest, so I wear my body out in an attempt to shut my head down. I’ve taken to using allergy medication to get myself to sleep lately, because I’m sleeping so much my body doesn’t want sleep. 14 hours is too much, for anyone. I’m trying to sleep it all away, I think. I’m hoping that each time I wake up it will be a different reality, a different mood.

There’s days when I wake up and do feel different. Maybe I went to bed hopeless and I wake up feeling…alright. Not so much a mess. More clarity. I’ve also discovered that I can go without sleep, something I’ve been toying with. My thoughts turn off a little when I’m extremely tired, something I dread, and something that I never thought I would try to do intentionally. But now, I want them off, I want nothingness sometimes, because I’ve gotten used to it. I’m getting addicted to numb. It’s so much easier when there is nothing to think about. None of it matters at those times, and that is both something to enjoy and something to loathe. Sometimes it is beautiful to look at what you treasure and for it to suddenly mean absolutely nothing.

But the woods were missing. I missed them. It was 16 degrees and windy, but I felt a lot better after disappearing for a long while. I keep forgetting I’m not just something automated, that I am something alive. I have to be out in the cold, dry air and feel it sometimes. I can’t just go by memory, as much as I want to. I have to have those short little glimpses of something not this, something not so rigidly controlled, or I start to go mad. I forget it’s there, then all I see is gloom.