The insomnia of the soulless

It’s two-forty a.m.  Maybe I just can’t sleep anymore.  Sleep requires a certain amount of something comfortable to sink into.  I don’t have that.  What’s missing?  Some would call it soul, some would call it joy of living, some might call it endogenous opioids.  Whatever; I don’t have it.  My life is bare and dry.  Those little bits of satisfaction I feel when I finish some project – you know, I suspect it’s just the same feeling I used to get from playing computer games as a teenager. 

Remember playing solitaire, and that satisfying feeling of putting all the cards away neatly onto their piles?  All the diamonds stacked up neatly, ace to king; all the clubs, all the hearts, all in their places, matching.  All tidied away.  Same around the house.  All the dishes, clean and stacked in the cupboard.  Floors: vacuumed.  Garden: weeded.  Groceries bought, and worn out clothes replaced with new ones.  Ten, jack, queen, king. 

Then what?  Read the email I signed up to read, watch the TV I scheduled myself to watch.  Stay up late and make a mammoth effort to get nearly all of it done – but it’s worth it, right?  Then go to bed at two a.m. and lie awake.  Lie awake with no dreams to sink into.  Lie awake dry and grey and empty. Try not to think about what I don’t have in my life. 

Sometimes it seems the only real story of my life is one of loss.  Loss of dreams, loss of possibilities.  Time goes by and things don’t happen… and I don’t know how to make them happen.  I lose my health, my figure, my libido, my earning capacity, my partner, my social circle.  And here I am, alternating between desperately trying to hold on to what I still have, and running to catch up, bewildered by the whole scenario.  Why isn’t my life like other people’s lives?  What am I supposed to do?  And where has my soul gone? 

It feels like I’m working so hard just to try to keep things together, that I don’t have anything left over to actually find an answer.  Perhaps finding an answer will entail letting go of something.  I don’t quite know how.  I haven’t even got the strength to keep myself properly fed, or my house clean. 

Three-twenty-four a.m.  And now what?  Blame myself.  If I’d gone to bed at midnight, surely I’d have slept sound and never fallen into this despair.  If I’d somehow sorted my email so I didn’t have to read it all, maybe I could have had the day finished by then.  Work hard enough, fast enough, long enough and surely all the work will be done.  Problems will have space to unravel themselves.  Good things will come. 

What would happen if I got everything done?  I’m looking at the list now.  I’d be better dressed.  My house and computer would be better equipped.  I’d be a little less anxious, knowing that everything was under control.  I might be a bit fitter – that would be nice.  And my wallet would be an awful lot lighter, of course.  The thing I’ve always imagined – and the feeling comes to me now too – is that I’d feel ready.  Ready to start something new.  A new life.  Maybe it would happen, I don’t know.  It has before.  Maybe the real question is, what would it take to feel finished with this one?  That’s really all I need to do to move on, isn’t it?  Finish the things that are still important here. 

If I look at it that way, perhaps it really does feel important to learn how to look nice.  That would make sense.  I still don’t know how to look the part I want to play.  Even the improvements for the house and computer, perhaps they’re largely social at their heart.  Maybe that’s what I need to do to be ready for the next part of my life.  Learn the skills and gather the materials for my next metamorphosis.