“You look so tired, unhappy…”

I don’t think I’m going to write anything interesting or thought provoking today, as I sort of did deliberately earlier this week (Monday more than Tuesday).  I certainly don’t expect to write anything profound.  I’m actually just very mentally and emotionally* tired right now, which is nothing new, but which is more onerous sometimes than others.  Such is the case with all things, I guess.

Yesterday, for most of the day, I felt extremely grumpy, by which I mean that basically everything was bothering me.  Part of this is no doubt due to my recent exacerbation and complication of my chronic pain:  I did something to injure my right knee, and it’s still very stiff and sore, especially when I first try to rise after being seated for a while.

It eases a bit after I walk a little; the stiffness seems to work itself out some.  But then it just re-seizes up as I sit, and it’s quite painful once I move again.  It certainly isn’t enough to distract from my chronic pain, but it does add extra highlights to it.  I guess at least it keeps things from being too dull (though the pain still often feels extremely boring‒in the “drill bit” sense, not the “tedious” sense**).

I’m sure it’s all plenty boring for you to read, probably in more than one sense.  I apologize.  You come to my blog in good faith, expecting to find something at least tolerably worth reading, and I keep spewing my vitriol and discomfort all over your minds.  Again, I am sorry.

I’m so tired of my life, though.  Yesterday, I don’t know how many times, or in how many ways, I fantasized about…well, you know.  I’m just very drained, and I feel as though there are always new setbacks.  I suppose that’s true, in a sense.  It’s probably true for almost everyone, in some fashion or other.  That doesn’t make it better or easier to bear, though.  If anything, it just reinforces my sense of despondency about the world and the universe.

Ordinarily, I can be philosophical about such things, embracing the apparent lack of meaning partly because it means that people can create and choose the meanings of their own lives.  But chronic pain and chronic insomnia just chew away at one’s sense of optimism or even one’s sense of acceptance.  Chronic pain tends to make one hostile and even spiteful, especially when one is dealing with it all by oneself.

Also, my thumbs are sore, despite the fact that I’m trying to find ways to give them a rest.  And the stupid rash on my right hand that seems to have started (years ago) due to some kind of contact hypersensitivity to something in the “rubberized” grip of those Pilot® gel-roller pens (which I love but, alas, must avoid) continues to act up, and as a consequence the skin near the crook of my right thumb is dry and splitting open, which can sting quite a bit.

Oh, and I’d also like to register a complaint about this parrot what I bought not half an hour ago from this very boutique.

You want to complain?  Look at these shoes!  I’ve only had them three weeks, and the heels are worn right through.  If you complain, nothing happens, you might as well not bother.

Something like that, anyway.  It is terribly annoying.  O that this too, too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.  Fie on’t!  O fie! ‘Tis an unweeded garden that grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.

And if the cloudbursts thunder in your ear‒you shout and no one seems to hear‒and if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes, I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

Sorry about that hodgepodge of quotes from various brilliant British artists from different times and very different genres.  Such are my go-tos, as they say.

What is it about Britain that has led to everyone from Shakespeare to Newton, to Darwin, to Maxwell, to Monty Python, to Tolkien, to Orwell, To Kipling and Wells, to Byron and both Shelleys, to the Beatles and the Stones and Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Radiohead and the Police and so on and so on?  Maybe it’s the chronic emotional repression, which leads to the build-up of thoughts and feelings that have to burst out somewhere?

Except I don’t think that’s how such things as feelings actually work.  Maybe it’s just that it’s not culturally “acceptable” there to express one’s deepest feelings and concerns except through formal art.  Keep a stiff upper lip, everyone‒unless you’re making an embouchure to play an instrument.  Then you can blow away!

Speaking of which, that’s probably what many of you wish you could do to me right now.  With that in mind, and since I don’t think I’ve something more to say, I will draw to a close.  I hope you all have a very good day.


*Aren’t those really just part of the same thing, though?  I think so.  Emotions are a kind of thought, or at least a state of mind.

**Though it is all but unbearably tedious, believe me.

3 thoughts on ““You look so tired, unhappy…”

  1. I don’t know anyone with half a brain who isn’t feeling some mixture of doom, despondency, and/or outrage these days. Add chronic pain, insomnia, and isolation to that and you might just think there’s a sadist out there mocking you. Does that sound weird? A little dark? Don’t lose hope though, WordPress is “checking my browser”. All will be well.

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