When You're the Walking Dead
So.
It's been quiet around here.
Well, it's been a year. Heck, it's been a couple of years. Life has a way of taking the wind out of your sails when you're not looking.
Lots of things have happened; I turned 50. I'm parent to both a legal adult and a teenager. One whom I'm obliged to interact with in strictly an advisory capacity. And the other of whom wishes that were so.
I'll leave you to figure out which is which (though the teen is oftentimes the more mature of the two).
In all seriousness, it's been a journey of endeavoring to find a path forwards when my waistline isn't the only thing in my life to go all pear-shaped.
Things have happened. Heavy things. Things I'm not sure I'm even ready to process yet. I mean how can I when my health is not great, my wife's health is even worse than mine, and work is demanding more and more everyday...
Infirmity has a way of contracting one's world till it seems as small as Hamlet's nutshell. I don't know about you, but I don't have the bandwidth (or the energy) to even begin to muster any outrage over the political climate in the U.S. (for instance). Life is more an unremitting treadmill of exhaustion and obligation.
It's not that it's a bad life, per se; I live in the wealthiest county in the world. I have a good family, a nice house... It's just the weariness. The bone weariness. Nobody told me that one of life's cruel jokes is that it demands more and more while taking health, energy, vitality at an ever-increasing rate as the years roll by.
Life seemingly takes more and more without truly giving anything back. It's oftentime dry as sawdust, tedious... Repetitious. And I can't fall apart; I'm the (as the saying goes) sole breadwinner for my family. It's on my shoulders. It's not that fun robbing Peter to pay Paul, keeping the bills paid, keeping a roof over our heads when more and more seems to be going out the door every day. Again, I'm not so much complaining as stating a fact (I know I live the most prosperous nation in the world, that I live what many would term a comfortable, middle class life; I get it). I guess it's just getting harder and harder to get by on one income these days. Listen; I want to hustle, to bring home more green. I just don't know how with: sleep apnea, thyroid disease, and my wife's health challenges that take so much time and energy to address. I'm doing good to get up and go to the job I have... Seriously, I don't measure my coffee in cups anymore; it's pints. It's either amazing, or distressing, how much caffeine I can imbibe in a given day and still be absolutely dragging myself in the door when I get home...
One day bleeds into the next, into the next, into the next. It's hard to muster the energy to be excited about much of anything when I'm wondering what I'll need to do to get some sleep. How much Melatonin will work for me? How about Valerian Root? Chamomille tea? I'm bone weary just sitting here typing this out.
Have you been there?
How did you break out of your rut?
Have you ever felt like the walking dead?