My Emotional Road Map (or Sympathy for the Devil- Rolling Stones)
My Emotional Roadmap
My brain can be all over the map. It has been that way my entire life, Probably more so now as I weather my second divorce and face my 67th year. I try my damnedist to keep the devil at bay.
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about my emotional health and how much it controls my physical and mental wellbeing. So I decided to write down a list of emotions that are in and out of kilter right now. It was shocking and enlightening at the same time. But I thought of it as an emotional roadmap. A small piece with all the entrances and exits I have passed through on my life’s journey. Who knows where the road will end but I’m still on the freeway?
In some ways I think I have entered another dark period in my life but I’m not ready to quit driving and get off at that final exit. There has always been a road sign to remind me that my exit is 50 miles away and take Exit A or B. So fasten your seatbelt and come with me on my emotional road-trip. Following are things that have bounced around my ever active brain. Welcome to my road…
- Depression and anxiety. Top dead center. My constant companions. They have always been a part of my life.
- Social anxiety disorder. Being in crowds sends me into a panic.
- I have started going back to church. A small congregation and I now sit in the back row. If I need to bail I can slip out quietly.
- Early mornings are very hard. I often wake up in a panic. What do I need to accomplish today? The bed feels cloying and I often wake up feeling anxious and depressed.
- Loneliness. I have a very strong desire for solitude, but…
- Familial relationships, especially with my children? Am I a good Dad?
- Love? Will I ever find it again? Is there someone who will love me for who I am rather than who they want me to be?
- Changing doctors. I need better care at my age.
- Motivation to do anything. I can easily sit and just stare out the window.
- I feel trapped in this apartment but I’m afraid of moving.
- I want a place to call my own and now that I have it, I don’t want it.
- Move away from here? Abandon this life? Another state or Country?
- There are moments of the day that I feel optimistic but soon I become depressed. I think how free I feel with life then I become an emotional captive with my existence.
- I sometimes worry about my short-term memory. I often lose track of events that happened yesterday.
- My friends at Upland, Taku, and Zwanzigs. Comfort food and company. I ate sushi tonight.
- I am often misunderstood by my family. They often don’t understand me or is it vice versa? I am a complicated soul.
- Poetry, Poetry, Poetry. I love to read poetry. I get lost in the poet’s words. Seamus Heaney. WB Yeats, Oscar Wilde, William Blake, Samuel Beckett…
- The Dao De Jing and Chuang Zu
- My musical tastes reveal my age. I love the Pogues and The Dubliners. My Irish roots.
- “Landslide” Fleetwood Mac. “Time makes you bolder, children get older, and I’m getting older too…”
- No one to look over my shoulder and tell me what to do…
- Warren Zevon. “My Shits Fucked Up”.
- There is a devil in all of us. How do we keep it to bay? Open ended question…
“When nobody wakes you up in the morning and you can do whatever you want. Is it freedom or loneliness?” – Charles Bukowski