The silence kills me, It’s like nothing thrills me. Doctor please just pill me, so I can feel something. Everything is boring. Who would have thought a group of musicians your age writing an album would resonate so well with you. This is the 4th song off the same album I’m using as inspiration for a blog. While I thought all these blogs would end up City and Colour songs, I sure was wrong, though there have been a couple of those. When you listen to music what do you hear first? The words or the instruments?

I warn you to never go to a doctor for pills to feel something. The pills they give for that? Often have the side effect of feeling even less, feeling sort of numb, stuck in the middle, no sadness but no joy. I’m in the middle of that feeling right now as I continue to try and change my meds to get my anxiety to a place that it’s not debilitating and I can resume life. You know, go back to the job I love, leave the house, get a dog, maybe go on a date or something. At the moment I do feel like nothing thrills me, I’ve been trying to watch sports to see if that excites me, it doesn’t really. The only things that have brought me any sense of joy of feeling have been running, chopping wood, and going in the cold plunge. You can only run so far. You can only chop so much wood. And you can only safely get so cold.

This blog has been something of joy I guess. Part of me wishes I had the courage to share it with more people, really I just don’t want my family to see it. I’ve always struggled with judgement my family may or may not have and honestly, I don’t want to know what they think. Part of me doesn’t even care what they think. The other part of me is crippled by it. They can be a bit overwhelming to me, it sometimes makes me feel like I’m going to spontaneously combust.

The silence does kill me, I can’t sit for more than a minute or two in silence, it stresses me out. It makes me feel like I’m going crazy. The only reason I know I’m not going crazy is my therapist always said “crazy” people don’t know they’re sick. I wish I could get more comfortable in silence but even when it is quiet, the voice in my head is like a rat on a wheel running for dear life. Even as I type this I make sure to really hit the keys on my keyboard so I can hear something. I can’t listen to music or have the tv on while I write because I lose my train of thought. Maybe to some degree this is me learning silence. When I’m not writing I always have music, the tv, or a podcast on. Even as I go to sleep I can’t go to sleep in silence. Queue the fan, the podcast, the music, whatever it is. Queue noise and a bit of light if you expect me to fall asleep. That’s right I’m uncomfortable in the pitch dark too.

Maybe everything isn’t boring. Maybe I’m making it boring by being too fucking afraid of everything. Today is my best friend since 7th grades wedding, but am I going? No. Why? Well because I allow my anxiety, panic and agoraphobia dictate what I can and can’t do. I can’t keep going on with a boring life like this because one stuck in the house isn’t one worth having. Some day I’ll look back and everything won’t be so boring, because I won’t be so boring.

Where the skies are gold not gray, J.