Well, my back was more relaxed, yesterday, but my heart was beating a little too fast all day, and on into the night, and i had some trouble sleeping. So I promised myself I was going to cut back to two heaping two spoons instead of four heaping teaspoons—because if the caffeine kept me from sleeping, then, zen morning or no zen morning, the caffeine had to be reduced. I’d managed pretty well so far, as I’d skipped the cup I had yesterday before shaving, so I was on one cup, now, and it was 9:28 am. So by the time I finished this cup, I’d have another, I guess around 10:15, and then I’d switch to Dr. Pepper at eleven, and have two Dr. Peppers, which, i’m thinking, and hoping, will correct the problem. I also wonder if listening to my clock all day might have caused me to overheat a little; I felt a little under pressure throughout the day, so, I’m listening to my clock now, but if I listen to it all day remains to be seen. I’ll just have to play it by ear. I’d made another adjustment, too. I did have a bath this morning, as I was up around 6:30 AM with no chance of going back to sleep, and, when it came time to say my prayer, which I don’t always do, I used my voice instead of Ursula’s voice—so I’d decided to go back to my voice when going about my day. I’d use Ursula’s voice while sitting at the computer, or while writing some of the literature I write, but, it seemed, I’d recovered Ursula’s voice as best I could, and that, in using her voice alone, I might have been ignoring my true self.
Then I have one final update: while reciting the first sixteen stanzas of “Chevy Chase” I’d used an uncle’s voice, a voice I remembered as being somewhat softspoken, a voice I associated, at this time, at least, with Shakespeare, but I realized that his voice and my internal narrator sounded a lot a like—that the voice I was projecting might not sound a whole lot like my uncle’s voice, and, well, I had no way of checking, and correcting it. I just had some vague memory of being in Nashville with him and listening to him talk about checks and routing numbers. But I did my best, and i projected his image as best I could, and I imagined myself there, at his house, in Nashville, and that was going to have to be good enough—as I’d been using this uncle, and a voice i associated with him, from the very beginning, eighteen years ago, now, and I wasn’t about to stop. He was my long term connection to Shakespeare—at least in the world I lived in, and I relied on the both of them.
So I thought this was okay—that, in fact, the voice I’m projecting, in so much that it has been altered, has been altered in a constructive way—a way that, over time, has brought me closer to Shakespeare, even if the voice, of all the voices I’ve ever used, sounds the most like my internal narrator. Anyhow, it was going to have to be okay, since this was the line I’d been using, having defined it, in this way. Well, it’s 9:48 am and I’ve finished my cup of coffee, and the compulsion to put something into my body almost all the time is real—it’s there, and I’m fighting it. My heart is already beating noticeably faster, and I’m still a little on edge from yesterday, in that, well, I don’t know that I ever really came off all that caffeine in the first place—as, even this morning, my heart seemed to be beating a little fast, and the idea of coffee, or even tea, left me with a mild whiff of nausea. Not enough to stop me from drinking my two cups today—but enough to keep me from wanting four cups, no matter how compelled I was to put something into my body, something that would change my state of mind.
Total sobriety—me, just me, without any drugs or alcohol—has always been a tense and somewhat miserable state for me. I need the psychiatric drugs I take—even if they don’t necessarily seem to make me feel that great, even if their effect, at least in part, is a placebo effect—this idea that I’m putting something into my body that keeps my sober state at bay. By sober, in this case, I mean having put nothing at all into my body—not coffee or tea or psychiatric medication—not anything that would change my mood from the outside in. But I imagine, too, that the psychiatric drugs I’m taking actually are doing something—that, without the Wellbutrin I would have the occasional suicidal thought, or the feeling of waking up completely hollow, as if I was hungover, even if I wasn’t, and, also, I would probably have even more trouble sleeping without the trazadone, as I, for the most part, had always relied on alcohol to get to sleep, up until I got on the risperidone and the trazadone. And, finally, if it weren’t for the Latuda, I could be subjected to runaway thoughts that were far worse than anything I ever experienced in my late teens and early twenties, as i didn’t completely lose my mind until I was about 24—and i didn’t recover it until I got on risperidone, around the age of 37. That’s a long time to be miserable, I know.
Are you waiting for me, inside and out? I don’t know how much I was really consciously waiting for her on the outside, as I would have appreciated a sex life, but, unconsciously, I’d never been able to settle, and just have sex, so it seems that, whether I consciously wanted to or not, I couldn’t help but wait for her, both on the inside and the outside. I’d always been waiting on the inside, and, well, on the outside—I did my best, with a fair amount of people, to engage in a sex life—and it only worked on a couple of people, and, even then, sex was never a 100 percent sure thing—there was always something in the back of my mind saying that this might not be the right person, that this might not be right. Besides—I didn’t expect her to live her life without a sexual partner, or even sexual partners—she might not have had her work, in the same way that I had mine, to fall back on—to dedicate herself to and entertain herself with, and, furthermore, if I ever got the chance to be with someone that might not have been ideal—but was good enough for now, well, I would have pursued it. I still would have been waiting for her, at least on the inside, and, as I imagine no sex life in this life will ever fulfill my every fantasy, I’m waiting for her on the outside, too, but no, I guess, in a way, I’m not entirely waiting for her on the outside, or, if I am, then whoever this good enough person might be, I imagine, will transform into something perfect in heaven.