Late Night Journeys…

I am slowly growing acclimated to staying up all night and sleeping in the afternoons. It has been a slow and gradual process as I still grow very sleepy in the evenings after taking my medications.  The urge to go to bed after dad leaves is very, very strong.  That 2mg of Klonopin no doubt the culprit as it can be such a sedative.  I love being a night owl though – a creature of the night.  I have missed this lifestyle so much loving the dark of the evenings and the quiet calm it imparts.  The world is asleep and I am up and about exploring the town and my little environment around me.  I feel this is the only way I can deal with that anxiety that haunts me every afternoon.  It is helping I believe.  As I’ve said before, early mornings are always bliss for me mentally.  I feel so well from about 8pm to noon the next day.  My unorthodox lifestyle allows me to do this. 

I drove over to get my diet Cokes around 1am. There were a lot of people out and about walking the streets tonight. My fellow night owls.  Mom had a care package of another little note of encouragement, toilet paper, paper towels, cigarettes, cigar lighters, and Maggie’s heartworm and flea medications on the porch.  I stuck the Cokes in the freezer to get cold when I arrived home.  I then shoved them in my backpack and set out for a walk down to the park in front of that dilapidated cotton mill as I listened to my little Sony weather band radio.  Tonight on Coast to Coast AM they were talking about space and the cosmos. They also had Major Ed Dames on for the last hour.  A remote viewer which makes me laugh as he never predicts anything concrete. He just waffles around the questions asked by the host.  It was an interesting show. More along the lines of which I like best.  Not all that fantastical end of the world 2012 and government conspiracy stuff.  I sat in the park drinking my ice cold diet Cokes smoking cigarette after cigarette as the katydids sang over the din of my radio. It was a moment of Zen.  I felt all was right in my world.  I was imbibing in all the things I love about life these days.

For some reason, I am finding myself unable just to sit at home content as I normally would be.  I usually tend to be agoraphobic – afraid to leave the house for fears of an anxiety attack.  I want to be out of the house finding my usual routines of months boring. Driving makes me nervous so I find myself walking everywhere I go.  I have this strong feeling of wanderlust – this strong urge to be out of doors and exploring.   It reminds me of my mother when she has trouble with her mental illness.  She will sit in the backyard in the swing until dad gets home from work saying she can’t go inside alone – that the walls are closing in around her.  I have walked more in the past few days than I have in months and my legs are sore to show for it.  Maybe the exercise is good for me – the release of endorphins that improve my usual dour moods. 

There was a previously unknown to me dollar in change in my backpack this morning.  I was exuberantly surprised.  On the way home early this morning after listening to my radio show, I stopped by the convenience store and bought a candy bar.  The sugar rush was pretty awesome as I walked home past the poor neighborhoods the line the street up from the convenience store. It was either that or a .99 cent can of Steel Reserve lager.  I felt laden with energy.  I felt strangely empowered.   I am finding myself laughing giddily in my own little world a lot these days.  A more gentle sign of my mental illness.  There is a mentally ill man who works in the hardware store next to dad’s pharmacy and he will laugh like this for no apparent reason. He is always grinning lost in his mental illness.   I feel a kinship with him these days as I know what he feels.  Laughter is good for the soul even if it is mentally ill induced.  I have these strong moments of laughter and excitement that are intoxicating they feel so good.  Dad would call these manic bipolar phases. 

I am not far from soon setting out for a morning of watching trains.  I have to stay up until 12pm and then I will come home and go to bed for the day – sleeping the afternoon away.  I wonder what strange creatures I will see on the tracks today?  I love people watching.   I will live vicariously as the patrons of Kroger walk by with their plastic sacks of groceries and twelve packs of beer – wondering what their lives are like.