He always liked the mornings best. The quiet. The alone. Those things aren’t as mutually exclusive as you’d think. The alone, that is. Alone is both physical in that no one else was around, but it was the embracing of the self that somehow made him feel a million miles away even though there were bodies asleep down the hall, oblivious to the anxiety sloughing off in the living room with each sip of coffee. 

Some days, not often, he’d awaken rested, without the signature “pulling” in his chest. Most days it felt like a constant tingle. A push in reverse, but centered to the right of his heart, urging, cajoling, and present. A combination of the day before and the day ahead. A feeling of being behind before you ever started. Of impossibility despite the very reality of necessity. 

Other days it bordered on panic. 

Those days the awakening process of the day could start at 1 am. Jolted awake, heart racing, feeling like it’s all over, that the walls were coming down. Even when able to convince himself of the reality that things were going to be okay, that things always were, the lizard inside his mind wouldn’t stop scurrying along the fence until he gets up for good. 2:37, 3:14 or somewhere close to his alarm, but always before. 

The irony of this is that it’s always forgotten once the motion starts. Coffee first. Then thinking. Alone. Maybe some words. The motion is the calmer. If he’s doing the lizard slows it’s breathing and that crazy red throat thing starts inflating and deflating. Each breath better than the one before. Most times the doing isn’t moving him forward. Most days it’s just doing for doing’s sake. 

Sometimes throughout the day while questioning, he becomes aware that he’s kind of wasting time. Driving to and fro, slowly chasing something to keep the motion going. The motion has become self fulfilling but of what, he’s not sure. Throughout the motion, despite of it,  full ideas come and then disappear to be followed by another and another and another. Not just the next big thing. The next five big things. Or six. Or seven. Every day. Meanwhile the sink has a leak that’s being ignored. A phone call would fix that. Another idea and a chase in another direction and that’s gone again too. 

This is how it is. Sometimes it feels like it will be how it is forever. Sometimes he can make breakthroughs. 

The breakthroughs are usually simple, not the world changing things he imagines. They are the paying of a bill, a smooth execution of something despite the chaos he brings to most things. His kid having a good run or a test or simple joy from something they saw on the Internet.  His wife’s laugh. It’s when his dog decides to come when asked and nuzzle under his chin briefly before jolting upright and clanking his teeth together. It’s a return to the quiet of the morning as he settles. 

The evening quiet isn’t met with as much satisfaction. By dinner and beyond he appears withdrawn or distant. It’s not purposeful. It’s mental exhaustion. Mostly, from the constant background hum that inquires. That pleads. 

He really does want to say more but by this time of day the words come clumsy and the ideas and stories are disjointed. It’s nearly impossible to explain it. So he doesn’t. He turns out the lights and the lizard collapses instantly, sometimes mid sentence. 

He’s asleep. 

Until the pulling brings him back again. 

#hugsandhi5s