Mind Games

It is painfully beautiful out this morning. I left for the gym at 4:50 am to make sure I was there when it opened but I got caught behind a very long train that was moving very slowly, so I had to sit in the falling snow and watch the headlights of passing cars on the road beyond, and it was all so still except for the train and the plash of flakes on my windshield, and I kept thinking, "This is not real, this moment in time is not real, it is just a dream." And then the train was gone, and I was right. The moment of being protected from the future by an immovable barrier was gone. I had to move on.

Because of his surgery, Tony was late opening the gym, so it turns out I could have left my apartment fifteen minutes later anyway. While we waited for him, the six or seven of us stood by our cars in the snow and discussed whether or not we thought he really was coming. Very cute, Heather said when she drove up, almost romantic, us standing in the glare of our headlights and the snow. Think of us, I told Tony as he left. He just laughed.

It's much harder than you might think, keeping your mind focused on something positive all the time, every time. You should try it sometime. I lay in bed last night for three hours before I fell asleep, trying to keep my mind off everything that felt like it was tearing me apart. First, I had a hell of a time thinking of positive things, and then I once I found something it took all my concentration to get my thoughts to stay there and not stray back to all the things gnawing at me. Three hours of battling. I'm not sure I ever really slept. I'm paying for taking those six sleeping pills all in one night, because now I have five nights without any. But I'm not sorry I took them. I'm just sorry I couldn't take more. I'm not interested in overdosing, but I am interested in not cutting.

So here are the positive things: The feel of a horse, my horse game, riding a rollercoaster, searching for bargains in a thrift store, lying safe in someone's arms, running along the beach, getting lost in one of my paintings, Benny & Joon, any book on tape. People, I find, I cannot think about, as sooner or later they always lead me back to chaos. The Bible too seems a path much to quick to steer me back into despair. This troubles me, and yet makes since. The Bible is tied up so much with people in my mind, people I know. I cannot separate the two.

And so I try to feel the horse, and the wind, and the sand beneath my feet, and the sun on my face, and I try to feel a dog in my arms, and I try to hear a story in my head while my fingers move pastels across paper in an ever widening slash of red. You see? You see how quickly I return? The pain inside is quite literally pain. If it were not so physical, it would not be so bad.