Chill and Pill

After three days of sleepless and sick, I wake just about 4:30 and for the life of me can't slip back into that hour and a half of peaceful dreaming still left to me.  My mind, I realize dimly, is fully engaged with worry about - of all things - debt.  Where it has come from I don't know but suddenly I discover I'm unable to turn it off and I start mentally reviewing the contents of the closets, the drawers, the jewelry boxes, making fuzzy edged lists of things I might be able to sell.  After a half hour, I give in and get reluctantly up to face the day. But the thoughts continue to race - needlework Christmas tree ornaments, I think, some camera equipment, a hand made crocheted tablecloth, unused table linens, the brand new dog kennels that didn't work, masses of costume jewelry, artwork that has no meaning except to me, shoes and clothes I haven't worn for decades.  It's time, I resolve, to clean house, give up my foolish and profitless packrat ways and concentrate on paying the Visa bill.

Here is a bitter truth: there's nothing here I can take with me.  And as it stands, there won't be enough to enough to send me.

I tell myself this is just the aftermath of cabin fever and a cold, of bad dreams born of worry and an ever present fear of mortality that sometimes I suspect might be just around the corner.  I'm dwelling on the dark side and the dread, and this is not how my mind usually works.  It's delayed grief for the recent loss of a beloved cat, it's the upcoming end of the year taxes, it's the increased price of my antidepressants.  And there, THERE, in that flash of a moment of unexpected insight - I remember I haven't taken one in days. The thought is nearly paralyzing in its intensity and it takes several seconds for me to reach enough awareness to curse my own carelessness.  

Of course, there is still a grain of truth is all this negativity and it would be an excellent idea to clean house and let loose of some of these dusty old possessions that really are no more than possessions and do little more than take up space.  But I will do it judiciously and thoughtfully, not out of panic and despair and dread and a lack of medication.

First the pill.  Then the chill. 
First, reinforce and repair the neglected brain chemistry.  Then clean the closets.