Tired.
I don't sleep much anymore. 3-4 hours a day, and it is usually during the day.
The night is full of noise. In the small hours, all my closest friends come to visit: Anger, Sadness, Despair, Anxiety, Pain. My leg hurts. It always hurts. Never ceases: deep, dull ache, sharp, repeating stabs, prickling, skin so sensitive the lightest touch is a burning matchstick. Who can sleep with all that racket?
You want to see how funny a comedian is when he's not on the stage? Peek beneath the fleur-de-Kos.
My human friends are few and precious. My found family, the other blood in my veins, the soulmates I never sought but was damned lucky to find. They are my brothers and sisters. They have no equal.
So it was no fun at all when my brother Eric killed himself in October of 2004. Less fun that we were his family, too. We planned the wake. We planned the funeral. We carried him to his place in the ground. My leg stabbed at me, wanting me to trip, stumble, fall. Stress always makes the pain worse.
I had to do the talking. Comedian me; I was the obvious choice. Public speaking? No problem - except for this ragged, screaming hole through the middle of me. I put my brother in the ground and told the onlookers, "This is not Eric's final resting place." I touched my head and my chest and told them, "It's here. And here."
Then I cleaned out his apartment. Because nobody else could. It had to be done.
My family blew apart. Ron went to San Francisco. Will went to Atlanta. Austin followed Will. I stayed in Madison, Wisconsin. Geez, guys. Could you have moved farther away?
Then Austin followed Eric in January of 2012. Will says at the end, Austin thought "they" were coming to kill him. The police found 3 months worth of unused anti-psychotics in Austin's home.
Eric and Austin were both flat broke at the end, up to their ears in debt and on the verge of losing their homes, their vehicles - everything that wasn't nailed down. I didn't have much, but I would have given it to them. They never asked.
I do that a lot. I save them over and over. I am a hero.
Would that my imagination could alter reality, stop the destruction of my country, staunch the wound in the heart of everyone who is struggling, for Eric, for Austin, for those like them, at the end of their rope - but it can't. And so the march continues.
Sadness, anger, anxiety, despair, pain - each flows into the next. Like a ticking clock. Like a countdown.
They are not all equal. Anger drives me. Gets me out of bed. Gets me to the phone. Another email to some asshole who claims to represent me. Another petition signed. Twenty dollars to this campaign, ten to that. I'll stay in this month to make up the loss.
I have to be a part of the solution. If I can't, then I should get out of the way. But that's not an option. I have never, will never follow the paths of my brothers Eric and Austin. Heartsick reminds me it's still beating, the cadence for this long march. Thump-thump, thump-thump; and my leg's counterpoint: Stab. Stab. Ache. Stab. Forward, always forward.
Forward or die.
It's a kind of stubbornness. It will get worse before it gets better. If it gets better. But I don't quit. Hunch my shoulders and trudge forward. Fuck you, leg. Fuck you, whoever you are who drives my friends to an early grave.
Anger. Keeps me moving. And pills. So sick of pills. Need 'em, hate 'em, here, have another.
So tired. Tired in body and spirit. The sinking sleeplessness, the empty places where my brothers once lived, the constant companion of my leg, the mad world that tries to pull me under.
Never. You get me? You cannot have me. Not now, not ever.
Time to get out of bed.