The Manic Mechanic

This is starting to drive me crazy. For the past week, I have not been able to sleep at night whatsoever. My mind keeps racing, I can't get comfortable, and right about as the sun starts to shine, I collapse. My remedy for this has been taking days of vacation to rest during the morning, and doing my various projects here at the House and Garage of Mayhem in the afternoon and evening. I've been watching the caffeine intake, not eating anything past dinnertime for the most part, and not napping. Still, I am restless as hell, I DON'T want to sleep, and I keep doing stuff to make use of the time.

But there is an upside to this happening. You see, this is the 'old me' finally coming back online.

For many years, seemingly centered around the car accident in '00 and really hitting hard with Mom's initial diagnosis of lung cancer, the old me that was a whirlwind of creativity and enthusiasm got the wind knocked out of my sails. I got mopey and listless, I let things fall into neglect and disrepair at times, and I really didnt have much enthusiasm to speak of. I'd been diagnosed with depression in the years before after suffering with peritonitis that nearly killed me and the antibiotics and drugs that brought my body back into shape turned my mind into oatmeal. After a run of antidepressants I eventually weaned myself off of them, flying solo and doing pretty good until that time period I spoke of earlier. I noticed lately that I am more upbeat and during my holiday break I did a lot of stuff around here and began to really feel good about myself. But the pendulum seems to have swung too far. I'm practically hyper and need to channel it somewhere.

That hyper part has done me well over the years. I missed it, actually, since it would get me through rough times, keep my focus, and give me feelings of accomplishment. This is the first time in a while that I can say I am more like my 'old self' and it genuinely makes me happy. The problem is, it's wildly out of sync with the demands of everyday life. Tonight I clambered around in the basement running cabling and ran wires through walls, cutting holes in drywall, installing boxes and all sorts of other stuff. I'd be doing more at the moment except for the fact that Jeff is asleep and the sounds of reciprocating saws, drills and hammers would not be appropriate this time of night. So, I sit here installing printer software on the server with my eyes so wide open I resemble a crack addict looking for scrap metal to plunder from abandoned buildings. If I could only set my internal time zone to match reality.

Blargh, this is nuts.

I was supposed to be up in Pennsylvania right now. To finally take a bit of time off to get away from my dismal life here as of late and unwind, Jeff and I were heading up for one of the more unusual yet friendly and laid-back weekends at Hillside (Wrestling/Car Show/Talent Show weekend). Alas, it must not have been meant to be, as I had a nasty blowout of the rear tire on my truck that nearly sent me into a bridge abutment. I managed to collect the truck and pull off the road safely to assess the damage. Tread ripped from the tire, trim torn off the bed side, bent-up wheelwell. Great. The tire itself was still fully inflated, but appeared ready to blow off the rim. I let out most of the pressure and put on the spare. With all my enthusiasm ripped to shreds and resembling that tire, I called Jeff, cancelled yet another of our vacation trips and skulked home. I'm not about to drive over 500 miles on a 16 year old spare tire and three other potential timebombs.

When will this end? How much more hell am I supposed to endure? It seems never ending at this point. Yeah, I guess it's all in how you look at things. I didnt wreck the truck, the trailer was not attached yet (that would have definitely been a disaster), there was no one in the adjoining lanes, etc. Still, I cannot help but feel that my life is somehow stuck in a downward spiral. Everything somehow feels 'wrong' at this point. I had a premonition of sorts regarding tires on the trailer, and brought along the small floor jack just in case. It came in handy.

Saturday marks one month since Mom died. One month already. I miss her terribly, and I am constantly falling into those moods where I just start crying. Does not matter where I am, it just happens. It's to be expected I guess, and I dont see those ending anytime soon, if ever. I still got a ton of business to tend to in this respect, and really doubt if I can ultimately be at any sort of ease until I deal with it. I still cant help but feel something else extremely bad is going to happen.

I am beyond exhausted. I am going to bed, and shutting off the alarm for once.