I used to feel connected to the world
through this bright box I'm staring into. I could find people to
talk to anytime but now I stay up trying to wring out the last drops of
the day and it feels lonely. I resist falling off my perch into sleep. Instead
of going to bed I sit here traveling through digital
lands of and light and thought.
The need to stay conscious as long
as possible has become a compulsion. Being awake and alone here at my
computer most of the
night has become my natural environment. I used to dread these small hours
when I fought against insomnia but now they’re precious.
At my desk I lose myself for hours at
a time in different pursuits. My attention span, which has been sifting
away year by year, is for a while focused, and I don’t notice the passing
of time.
There are mornings when I look up to
see my husband, Carl, standing in the doorway saying good morning as he’s
leaving for work. There are some nights when I feel the need to connect with
someone. It's lonely in the wee hours of the night, like driving down a
dark street in the rain and looking into the windows of houses along the way. I
see lights on and people moving inside and I don’t know who they are.
Lost dreamtime spills into my waking life, and dreams that are denied tend
to hang around. If I’m not asleep long enough to let them play
through they jump out at any time and demand my attention in disconcerting
ways. My unconscious mind plays tricks on me, it will have its dreaming
whether I'm asleep or not. I struggle with myself, not wanting to give in
and go to bed, not wanting to give up consciousness.
I wonder if it's an instinctual desire to live every minute while I'm
still able to function on my own.
I read some books by Dylan Thomas many years ago, and one of his
poems sticks
in my mind. “ Do not go gentle into that good night”.
The sense
of being unconnected is a condition of modern times, one of the prices we
pay for success of our society. Many people I know are lonely or depressed
and it isn’t just PWPs. Being depressed has become the natural state of
our existence. It almost seems aberrant to be happy.
carol mcleod
