San Francisco Was Cool Today....Thoughts I'm Having (This is in the Present Perfect Although I Am Not Feeling At All Perfect)

“I can't deceive myself that out of the bare stark realization that no matter how enthusiastic you are, no matter how sure that character is fate, nothing is real, past or future, when you are alone in your room with the clock ticking loudly into the false cheerful brilliance of the electric light." - Sylvia Plath.

San Francisco was cool today. After an uncomfortable mini heat wave traces of fog crept over the Golden Gate carried by a soft breeze. The trolley was barely half full adding to the comfort. No jostling or bumping no loud cell phone conversations no one’s music creeping out of the air buds of their iPod. Just me and Jack Kerouac’s journals.

Some days are comfortable and easy and don’t jack you around. Others test the limits of human endurance. Few are perfect but then so too are there few that offer great pain. Even in the midst of depression one can find moments of contentment.

Moments.

Depression. Feeling trapped. Life has placed two thick walls on either side of you and a low ceiling above. That slow desperate sigh like an exhalation of pain. But each breath draws in more. The body feels weighed down by an oppressive cloud of gloom encircling the head. Sitting down is too easy. Getting up thus difficult. Sleep is desired but wakefulness persists. Being awake to slowed down reality and pain. Sorrow gnaws at the brain. Consuming nothing but torturing everything.

Distractions from the pain abound but never last providing momentary respites at best. Plans goals dreams hopes all feel hollow and unrewarding. Death feels inevitable and close. Not that it will occur soon just that it lingers nearby a constant reminder of its inevitably.

Today's work day started later and ended earlier. Home to see daughters the younger of whom visits for the weekend from college. Then to watch Fargo courtesy of the DVR. The masterful new television series loosely based on the Coen Brothers film of the same name.. With Breaking Bad and True Detective it offers a third excellent small screen discovery in the past year for me. So much to be happy about. For. In Among and with.

Later the DVR offers Letterman the Daily Show Colbert Report and Bill Maher’s Real Time which I only watch the beginning and end of this night. So much TV but needed when in the throes of emotional ennui. It would be hard to do much else. And has been. Until now. When I write.

Write.

Here again is an enjoyable activity a nourishing one when the hurt is so strong. The wife sleeps now -- a deserved rest for a woman whose burdens include having yours truly as a spouse. I can hear her. She’s not snoring just exhaling comfortably. I’ll try to join her later. Try. Sleep may come and it may last but likely as not will consist of the proverbial tosses and turns. Back. Side. Stomach. Repeat. Two pillows under head. Then just one then one clutched in arms then none. Eyelids heavy just thinking of it. Eyelids heavy anyway.

Was at the ballpark Wednesday night. Giants won in a game that required a mere two hours and fifteen minutes. If all games were this short or even shorter I might be more inclined to go with greater frequency. Also if tickets were cheaper and fewer fans were drunken louts and the journey home on public transport were more accommodating. I do love a good game though. Sat with a former workmate and we chatted away happily. Baseball allows that. Invites it.

I ran a combined 83 miles in April. My physical self is quite healthy. I do not feel anywhere near whatever age I am (I heard 60). I don’t think I look it either. But I also don’t have the boyish good looks that highlighted my features well past 40. How is that I have been on this planet so long? Shouldn’t I be wise? Am I? Is this that I feel a response to the joyous celebration of self congratulation I had as approached and conquered the three score mark? My its easy to create questions and so much more difficult to try to answer them. Least of all with any success.

For some of us happiness comes and goes. I had one long stretch of feeling fantastic. Where did that go? Couldn’t I have kept it? Why do I feel so put upon by life? Why can’t I appreciate all the gifts life has bestowed upon me? Wife. Daughters. Friends. Job I love. Health. Sobriety. This computer. An appreciation for the arts. Should be more than enough.

Yes but I do. I do appreciate all that I have. I am grateful. I do feel lucky and privileged and blessed. But I also feel as though I’m staring into an inky void with tunnel vision. Desperately tired and despairing and resigned. This is what happens. I am finishing this sentence here. And this paragraph here.

And this blog post here.