Chatter in the Skull - Part I. Ch. 2
Chatter in the Skull
Or—Thoughts at 5 a.m.: The Ramblings of an Anxious Mind
Part I – Ch. 2:
Drinking with the Dearly Departed
May 2021 – Charleston, SC
My stomach is growling. I was hoping I’d fall asleep before this anxiety started up again, but I have a million things on my to-do list. I finally paid my taxes but realized my driver's license is expired. I have one project I’ve been working on for almost a month now, plus two articles I'm behind on, and that doesn't even include the tasks I should have scheduled and started on by now, which now will have to be rolled over to next week. There is currently a national gas crisis and I’ve been sick from my second vaccine. We got some rain, leading me to discover that the kitchen roof leaks.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to go to Raleigh for my sister’s Gender Reveal Party, where I find out if I'm having a niece or a nephew.
All of this is accumulating.
It's May now. I'm down in Charleston.
Awake. Can't sleep.
Anxiety has gotten worse this week. It's an accumulation of bad habits. Poor eating habits. I’m just not eating at all. I used to love food. Used to love cooking. I suppose I still do love cooking, but now, when I sit down, I hardly even want to eat it. Hours spend concocting delectably delicious dinners, just to get a couple of measly bites in before losing interest. Often, I don't even realize I'm hungry until I'm eating. Even then, though, the sensation is short-lived.
My stomach is growling because I didn't eat very much yesterday. I had a good breakfast at lunchtime, but I didn't eat again until almost 10:00 p.m. Potatoes, vegetables, and eggs for breakfast. Two small slices of pizza for dinner. And a beer. One, single beer.
I went for a walk and ended up in the graveyard, the old graveyard in the Old Village neighborhood part of Mount Pleasant. I saw a juvenile horned owl there last week, and I’ve been fond of the place ever since. I had a beer with me and walked around drinking with the dearly departed. There was a woman named Ida who passed over in her 80s over 50 years ago. There’s a dead man named Charles. And a headstone so old I could barely read it. The name was hard to make out, but I gathered that they were born in the 1800s and died in the early 1900s.
They were only 33 years old when they died. My age now.