Sometimes I feel that I want to scream, but the words aren’t there. Instead, they whir around my head in some dizzying display, shooting past my eyes and tongue but never getting out. It frustrates me and angers me.
A host of emotions build and build with no way out, no way of ridding the infernal buzz that keeps the mind high, as if on some super-drug. It can be exhausting. You learn to turn the volume down, but it is never quite enough; it’s always there, even if only a hum in the background.
This evening, today, it has been loud. It shouts all sorts of things at me and conjures memories that do little good. It likes to do that a lot. Strangely, the memories are not necessarily bad. They can be happy thoughts that make me sad only because they are history and won’t be repeated. I could say the same for the not-so-good thoughts, but they do repeat, and all too often.
Tonight, especially, my mind is racing. I can’t settle; I can’t think.
Dragged up from the depths are deeper, more concerning thoughts. It’s like stirring the sediment from an old pond. All that whirring eventually unsettles the detritus that’s floated to the bottom, and it rises in a murky, stale fog that is hard to see through. There is nothing you can do but let it settle—a slow process. I manage it, though. Experience, I suppose? To be honest, at times, it can be terrifying. All that murk and gloom can seem impenetrable, and no matter how much you try, there just seems no end to the darkness and debris that surrounds you. It is endless.
Yet, here I am. Still swimming and trying every day not to stir the bottom of my pond up. Recently, I don’t think I have done too badly, but tonight I may have felt a few ripples which I hope don’t go too deep.