Things are better now

[Originally posted elsewhere, February 12, 2006]

It's nearly three thirty a.m. and I'm sitting on my sofa, eating chicken and ramen noodles, drinking ginger ale, watching Boston Legal for the third time huddled under my soft, new, plum-colored chenille blanket, and crying.

There's nothing wrong, really. I have a slight headache, and I'm a little chilly, but nothing really hurts. And I'm awake because I slept from five thirty p.m. 'til a little after one a.m., so it's really quite reasonable that I'm awake now. I've just been obsessing about the normal aches and pains that I have in my life and wondering if I'm dying and if so, is it my fault I'm dying?

I called my mother before I lay down and we talked about it, about the way fear and anxiety come out one way or the other, and in my case, if I can't just let it out, I get sick, which is what's happening now. I'm coming down with something, and the precursor to actual illness is dread, anxiety, and guilt.

So I take my tranquiliziers, and I sleep as much as I can, and I eat comfort food, and I cry.