It’s 12:45 AM.
I can’t sleep. Part of it comes from jet lag; I couldn’t keep my eyes open at 6:30 pm and then awoke not long after feeling like my house was being broken into. Turned out (I think) just to be an anxiety dream.
And there’s plenty to be anxious over. The world feels like we are in end of days and the politicians, diplomats, and generals are all maniacs looking to blow it up.
I’m worried. I’m even terrified. And not just about the geopolitical realm; the clear and present danger of climate change, of our head in the sand impact on the natural world feels like we are careening toward an ecological end as well. Creatures come and go; ask the dinosaurs. Or we could if they hadn’t been wiped out. But we seem to be the architects of our own destruction… and on a variety of fronts.
I can’t sleep. And it’s only partly due to jet lag.
I’m tempted to go out for a run in the hopes of at least quieting the whispers in my head of worry. But in truth it’s too late on the 8th and too early on the 9th to be running the sidewalks nearby. It feels unsafe in the neighborhood to be doing that.
I’ve got an alarm set for 4 am to go out but that’s asking a lot of the post bar crowd and the crazed homeless and downtrodden population. I’m lucky to have what I have, family and friends, a roof over my head… and yet the anxiety of it all weighs me down.
The distance between us and them… between here and there… the beginning and the end? It feels vast in some ways and far too near otherwise. It’s that highway hypnosis, the inability to tell how fast and how far you’re going on a straight line open road. And this feels like a straight line to this:
My legs hurt from this past weekend’s race. My soul hurts from this past week’s events.
I can’t sleep. And it’s only partly due to jet lag.
Sigh.
Don’t let it end this way.