GJX Daily

I haven’t posted for a while, over a month. I didn’t have much to say. I thought I wanted to post over at Open Salon (which is a great site), made a couple of posts that were well-received, but I just couldn’t come up with enough to keep going. And it’s not the personal journal that I really need right now.

It’s been a rough month, and last night was one of the worst. I dreamed I watched a man burn to death. It was horrible, I clearly saw the flames dancing around his body and face. It was someone I’d seen before, someone who had tried to catch my attention in the past. While I hadn’t snubbed him (I don’t think), I didn’t acknowledge him either. He was a biker type, and I have zero interest in motorcycles. I was talking to someone in a parking lot, and he shouted to me from the roof of the building right next door. It was close enough that I could clearly see him and recognize him. It was a flat roof, and he was sitting on his motorcycle holding a can of Coleman lantern fuel. He started to dump the fuel on himself, and I yelled at him “No! No!” He looked right at me and set himself on fire. I didn’t have my phone and I yelled at the other person in the parking lot to call 911. I could see the fire all over his body, and could clearly see his face beneath the flames – calm, but with a vengeful, determined look like he was trying to spite me. The guy got off his motorcycle and slowly and calmly started to walk. I knew he had started an irreversible process that would lead to a slow, painful death, and I was horrified. I looked in the direction he was walking, and it looked like there was a row of people also burning the same way, but I saw no detail on any of those people. It was then I woke up. Looking at the alarm clock I see it’s 3:20, and I tried to go back to sleep. Images flooded in of people who had burned, and it was horrible. I couldn’t shake the thoughts. At 4:00 I got up, and stayed up. That’s where I am now.

My wife says she feels bad for me because I don’t dream. She thinks I should be having pleasant dreams, and should be seeing Ryan in my dreams. I do NOT have pleasant dreams, they usually aren’t horrible nightmares like this, but are often disturbing. Some stick with me for a long time. I don’t want to become dependent on sleep medication, but when I don’t take it, like last night, this is what happens. I almost always regret it.

While I don’t have a bad life at all, it seems to get less enjoyable day-by-day. I really need to find something to get involved in, to be interested in. But any hobby I get interested in will eventually consume me. Some people take great enjoyment from little things – working in the yard, watching a movie, etc. I either become completely immersed in an activity or I don’t do it at all, there is no middle ground. I would like, for example, to begin bass fishing again. But eventually I would own another boat, I’d be fishing tournaments, traveling great distances to get there which would mean time away from work, and it would spiral. I would be good, but it would consume me. I would enjoy target archery again, but the same thing would happen, I’d need the best equipment, I’d be at the range day and night, and it would also spiral. Once again, I’d be good, but at a huge cost.

This is obviously a depression, with the bottom held up by my Welbutrin.