Myopic

Great show last night with Matt. You can listen to it on the 2HRadio page, or click on the iTunes button in the sidebar to subscribe to the podcast.

I’m near a breaking point. Not THE breaking point, mind you… *A* breaking point.

It’s one thing for me to hurt myself. But I’m hurting people I love. And it’s because of my Blinders.

To break it down simply, when I’m this fucking down, if you’re not in my direct field of vision, I don’t see you. It’s nothing personal, it’s the way my head works at times like this.

If you walk right in front of me, then yeah, suddenly I see you. Email me? I see you. Call me? I see you. Text? Yes. If a tweet of yours happens to scroll through Tweetdeck for one of the 4-minute chunks where I’m in front of Twitter, then I see you.

Otherwise, everything NOT in my immediate sight is faded away into the background. And that doesn’t sit well with some of my friends, which is understandable. But I hate the thought of hurting the people I care about.

I’m overwhelmed. It’s an ordeal for me to make the morning coffee, let alone do dishes or laundry or try to earn a living. I feel myself pulled in a multitude of directions. And so my brain puts these Blinders over my eyes, as if to say, “Dude, do what you can do. No more, no less. Only worry about the stuff right in front of you.”

Perhaps that’s pragmatic. But lately it’s also quite inconvenient, and it’s the Blinders that are making people upset.

I am not reading blogs, people. I tell you AGAIN, I’m not reading them. No, not even YOURS. Not even my best friends’ blogs. None of them. So I’m not up on what’s happening in your life unless you seek me out and tell me. Or maybe I see something on Twitter, but again…I’m hardly on Twitter.

Here’s how I approach Twitter. I’m on for 3-5 minutes at a time. I play around, crack some jokes, interact a little…then I’m gone. Distracted by something else for 45 minutes or so. Till I come back to Twitter for another 3-5 minutes, when I respond mostly to @’s. Then gone. Lather, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

I don’t spend HOURS on Twitter at a time, even though Tweetdeck is open most of the day. I don’t use Twitter like many of you do. So please don’t assume that just because you’ve tweeted something, I’ve seen it and know what’s going on with you. That would be a really poor assumption.

Hell, most of the time on Twitter lately, I only see people if they’ve @’d me.

What I’m saying here…no, what I’m ASKING of my friends is that you wave bright, shiny objects in my face to make me notice. The brightest of those objects are emails, texts, and phone calls.

Please don’t be upset that I haven’t heard about your baby getting colic, or that you and your spouse are separated now, or that you’re moving into a new house, or that you got into a big spat with a mutual friend.

Or that I haven’t called you or written you. Or if I’m distracted while we’re on chat because I have 15 other tabs open and I’m multitasking while I’m waiting for you to type a response. Or that I answer the phone while we’re on chat. Or that I missed a phone call or forgot to respond to a tweet or an email. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you, none of it does.

Right now, I’m myopic. I recognize that. I need everyone in my life to recognize that, too. I’m sure that won’t happen, but I need everyone I care about to know…it’s not that I don’t care. It’s that I’m doing what I can do right now.

Everything for me right now takes a great deal of energy. Especially the things which involve me having to form complete sentences that actually make sense.

I’m tired. All the fucking time. Drained, exhausted. Like I’m on a perpetual marathon run.

And on top of that, life inconveniently refuses to put itself on PAUSE while I try to work my shit out and regain my breath. Loved ones are annoyed, irritated, even angry with me because I’m not paying attention. And that only serves to drain me more, because now I’m putting energy into reparation…energy that might have gone toward getting my ass out of this stupid recliner so I can try to take a shower once in a while.

I want to just say, “That’s it. I’m done. Finished. Yes, I suck as a friend. I give up.” Then spend three weeks unconscious and REALLY forget about the world. Not an option, unless I find a way to harmlessly slip into a coma.

I need a 2-hour massage. Body aches, everywhere. Brain, too.

Like a pressure cooker that hasn’t been vented, I feel like I’m about to blow. Except that pressure cookers aren’t expected to socialize.

So they do have the advantage on me.