three weeks forever

A terrible sleep, no reasons to be awake at three am so I got up took two Xanax and a cirrus and I guess I got a few hours, four it feels. 

I am completely tormented about staying here any longer than I need to and I don’t exactly understand why.  It appears returning to the states to apply for a Belgian visa may never be if I cannot submit all the req’d documents and if that becomes truer then I don’t need to return to the states.

There is nothing worse than imagining scenarios that leave you completely adrift.  I could have never imagined I’d be where I am doing what I am doing as a teenager then again like then interests waned quickly leaving me adrift for something else to keep me hanging onto.  If I become adrift then let it be in a used car with a good radio somewhere I don’t know.

Everything is negative, not knowing anything does that to some degree.  Three weeks to go.  It’ll be three weeks until the last final frantic days where you’ll find me eating grass in a field. 

It feels significantly lonelier here than any place I’ve lived.  That’s a strange thought, lonelier meaning more restricted, confined and by the end of this week I will be the only person in the entire 16 room guesthouse. 

10 minutes treadmill, ten minutes on the bike.  wow, we are so impressed. do it again tomorrow and the next day and ya da ya da, let’s see if a little sweat will help reduce anxiety.  And now a cigarette?  ten minutes forward, two minutes backward.

Anxiety, I am no doctor, is irrational.  When you don’t have control of something even though you know at the end of the day it should be alright, then it is irrational.  The Human Resource staff are all good people and I understand sort of, how they work.  I have to go to them.  Timing is everything, making a decision on dates will take care of at least one anxiety that is bubbling you out of bed at three in the morning, you think?

But what are those dates going to be?  Should I fly back to the states not knowing or should I go to Ireland, can Ireland be a place to begin my detox?  Climbing Croagh Patrick would be good medicine. 

But I might have to pay for the ticket to the states, I don’t know if I can break it up, such anxieties of the unknown, talking to people who know helps ya know? 

And I have to go to the bank after the last payment is deposited.  When will that be?  I don’t think the hr men know this, I don’t know maybe they do maybe they are thinking, what’s the rush you got three weeks forever ha ha ha to leave here.

Anxiety.  You suck.  Give it to God.  Give it to Om and Allah and all the angels and principalities and remember the homeless who don’t know what they’ll eat today, probably nothing Ramadan kareem.

The last transport leaves in one hour and twenty minutes.  I have to eat something though I’m not really hungry.  What can fill me for the next four to five hours with only secret sips of water to sustain me?  Toasted peanut butter and jelly?  and pretzel sticks and a doctor pepper.  should I shower?  I don’t smell, tomorrow 25 minutes on the treadmill and bike.

And work is full of anxiety, unfortunately, an afternoon class where half don’t show up, I need to make a new attendance sheet I can’t read the names though I think I know everyone by name now.  But teaching this new class for six lessons, yuck, big yuck, the teacher whose class I’m taking sent an email with instructions that completely baffled me.  Talking in person is so much better most of the time and once I have a handle on these extra classes some of the anxiety that robs me of sleep should dissipate.

So, do you feel better getting this out?  No not at all.  I feel like another cigarette.

5:58pm—I asked Henry from Almaty about anxiety and insomnia and he shook his head quickly, oh yes everyone has anxiety here and I live in the basement for three years no more.  He moved just recently to the new campus.  With lots of space enough more so for someone who has lived in the basement for three years.  Less anxiety in the wild opens where there are horizons of mountains and fields of wheat and maybe a sunrise but not at four thirty in the morning. 

We agreed the exercise equipment is a necessary tool for dealing with anxiety.  Why, ask me how my day went at the office?  It was short and sweet and not too stressful.  Manageable with time I have. 

I have to run again tomorrow.  It has to become a habit.  The cross trainer shoes I am happy to say do ok in this kind of workout.  To think I almost gave these away in Kandahar because I wore them once or twice walking around Aino Mina and they hurt my feet.  They have done better here.  Keep ‘em. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOjHhS5MtvA

Beethoven’s 9^th is about an 81 minute one song that took about two hours to listen to.  Inspiring.  Everyone one of them in the symphony are from Chicago and they are all smarter than I am.  

I didn’t say Ramadan Kareem to my office colleague when she sat at her desk in front of me.  In fact I didn’t say it to anyone except the Zoom merchant yesterday and I don’t think he understood what I said, there was no answer.

I’m not surprised.  What is there to celebrate?  Did the prophet suffer as long as long as these people have suffered?  Through no fault of their own, the faith here is survival faith and I think that makes people humble, it ought to, to not be able to express true feelings without public rebuke and scorn leaves others without much faith at all. 

some of the faith will be happy to celebrate this holiday when it’s over. 

Good news too, food will be served until two on the campus.  This will help.  Cooking two meals a day, breakfast excluded, is not something I do well or enough.  What is it tonight, rice. 

And that is enough.