The Usual Struggle Between Fear and Love

6 December 2006

FC Porto 0 – 0 Arsenal (Champion’s League)

Aw, our first nil-nil of the season. How not exciting. But what can you do. Obviously, avoid scoring goals. Who wants those. They smell funny. The problem with the panic attacks is that they often come in waves, that is, once I have one, the topic is on my mind, and thus easier to steer towards when I’m trying to fall asleep or whatever. That is to say, I’ve probably had one a day for the last four days. Sometimes mild, sometimes a little more extreme. Maybe this is why I have had trouble sleeping recently, I don’t really know. The sleeping thing is just adding to my mental fatigue: between the persistent panic attacks and lack of sleep, I’m beginning to feel battered, like those old piers that you see rising up out of the beach sand, trailing into the waters, the planks jutting in awkward directions, the wood soaked to a permanent black, barnacles rising up them like smoke from a fire. I’ve started running again; I haven’t been running in over a year. The truth of the matter is that I hate it, I hate running with all my soul, but it is the best way to get exercise, and I am woefully out of shape. But that’s not even why I have started running again; I started in order to get better sleep. I thought, if I go running, and burn more excess energy, then I’ll sleep better. Boy was I wrong. I went running yesterday, had a pretty good run, and then last night, I had probably the worst sleep of my life. I woke up around five times from 3 to 9am, and didn’t sleep at all from 6 to 7:30am. I called into work at that point, and left a message with my boss, informing her I would not be showing up. I think I slept then, I think I did but God at this point I’m not even sure anymore. Sometimes I lie in bed, for what feels like 15 minutes, and I look at the clock to find out that 40 minutes have passed; I would swear to you that I haven’t slept, but I have no idea anymore. Sleep has become this depressing sphere of uncertainty, a realm that perpetuates my ceaseless exhaustion. I don’t think I’ve been really awake for a very long time. I’ve taken a lot of steps to try and rectify this. I cleaned up my diet, I stopped drinking any forms of caffeine, I’ve changed my sleeping positions at night, I’m taking a melatonin supplement (a natural drug that your body produces when it’s nighttime), and now I’m running, and none of it has cured my insomnia. I’m worried I need a new bed, but I’m really worried that won’t solve the problem. I just want to sleep, for eight hours every night, uninterrupted. I can’t express how much this is starting to drive me crazy. And the panic attacks. Saturday morning, I’m hungover-like, taking a shower to wash away the cigarettes and chicken wings from the night before, and I have a powerful panic attack. I grabbed the unused towel rack in the shower and shouted, slammed my hands against the tiles, and collapsed under the shower water, shaking, crying. This panic attack was different though: I wasn’t sleeping, and I wasn’t in a public place where I had to stifle the fear. The panic washed over me with the water, and hugged me like a caring parent. It wouldn’t leave. I sat there in the shower for some minutes, confronting my neurotic fear of the unknown. Slowly I stood up, as I began to realize something. I am afraid of death. But I’m afraid of death for everyone else, too. I don’t want you to have to experience the unending spiral of nothingness that occurs upon death. I worry for you. I want to vomit when I think about my grandfathers, my great aunt, and how they will never feel or think again: but then my worry extrapolates. I feel scared for the average citizens in Iraq who will die from a car-bomb, I mourn the banished emotions of the dead in World War 2, I imagine Mikhail Lermontov, that beautiful Russian rebel, I imagine him painting rivers and mountains and then being cut down during his prime in a duel, the dead emperors of Rome and the lost futures of the Children’s Crusade, the wrongly executed of the French Revolution and the Holocaust, the annihilated in Hiroshima, and those exterminated by the Black Plague. All the death in the world, past and present, weighs upon my conscience. Then I think of the people I know, who are alive. I think of my dad, and his unending desire to watch sports. My mom, and her love of using branches found on hiking paths as Christmas trees. My grandmother, and her strong dislike of appearing in photographs. My coworker Jay, and his good-natured laugh. My old teacher Mr. Uveges, and his fascination with computer coding. My first crush Tova, and her impish grin. My old best friend Gene, and his disarming friendliness with everyone. My cousin Monica, and how she insists on telling me every detail in whatever book she’s reading at the time. The list of people I think about proliferates out of control, until I am imagining all of humanity, everybody working and living together, smiling, crying, loving, hating, punching, kissing, swimming through beautiful blue water and walking over faded brown dirt, I see them all, and suddenly the fear of death is gone, and is replaced by unending love. This society that we live in is all kinds of fucked up, a society where we try and make ourselves happy but end up fucking other people up, but we’re all so beautiful because we’re here and we’re trying. We’re trying to make it good, we’re trying to make everyone happy. Maybe you’re not happy, and maybe I’m not, but we’re figuring out what makes us happy, because that’s all we can do, anything else is giving up, surrendering to the neuroses that our society has instilled within us. Becoming happy while living in this world is the challenge that is presented to us as we grow up, and we’re all out here, wrestling with these worries and inadequacies just to make it right. If you’re alive, I love you, I love you because you’re here with me and that helps me, I’m not alone in my fear, and our happiness together will push us past our worries. I’m still scared of death, but I’ll be okay with dying if I have made other people’s experiences here a little bit happier. These feelings, this huge cataclysm of fear and love, struck me during that shower on Saturday. As lame as it all sounds, it was an amazing feeling; I suddenly felt comfortable with everything, and I just wanted to live. I just wanted to be. And I was, and it was amazing. Happiness is learning acceptance; of yourself and your fears, of humanity and its mistakes, of this world and its mortality. I’m tired, forever tired, and I’m still terrified of dying, but I’m slowly accepting it all, and it’s making me happier. You have to accept it, really. The only other choice is leading an unfulfilling life, and dying scared and alone at the end. Come on, let’s stop talking about this. Let’s get outside. The sun is shining, the temperature is up, and I would like nothing more than to hang out with you.