Morning Report
I’m at a resort right now in Jamaica drinking shitty Spanish champagne alone on the balcony. I can see the ocean. It’s beautiful and Caribbean Blue. Enya was right. My wife and kid are inside. My baby is sleeping. I just had a mental breakdown in front of both of them because I misplaced our passports (I ultimately found them) and then my wife came in and passed off the child to me and went and took a shower and brushed her teeth and I went nuts because she left me alone with the kid to get him ready for nap. I got angry. The kid is afraid of me. I get angry. I yell and wave my hands. He started crying. My wife is afraid of me. Day one of this vacation and I’ve already threatened to kill myself. Things are off to a good start. Time to put on some George Thorogood and keep drinking. I can feel my end is near. I’m so on fire that I increasingly care less and less about anyone else. The flames are all around me. I’m unemployed. I’m addicted to cannabis. I think I’m going through cannabis withdrawal right now because of how explosively irritable I am. I’m fucked. I’m dust. My friend group is dissolving. My body is aging. My mind is going. My life prospects are narrowing. I snap at my wife all the time because I’m mentally ill, or our relationship is in peril, or some combination of the two. I feel finished. Like the sands of the hourglass are descending, the clock is ticking, and I can’t get my shit together because of the waves of life keep knocking me down into the sand. Just when I get past one wave another one comes. What is executive functioning supposed to be when you’re always in this state? I am pitiful. Who dropped me in this world? Like I would have a fucking shot here. Now I’m left to figure it out.
I need to just fucking let go. Chronic anxiety convinces you that there’s something to cling to, but there’s nothing there. You’re grasping at fucking mirages. Sic transit gloria mundi. Memento mori. Mono no aware. Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentum mortalia tangunt. That’s the real truth. That’s the only truth. Snap your fingers and it’s over.
I’ll leave you with a poem:
“I Know a Man”
As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking,—John, I
sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what
can we do against it, or else, shall we & why not, buy a goddamn big car,
drive, he sd, for
christ’s sake, look
out where yr going.
Robert Creeley