A Screed On Lethargy
Def. – “the quality or state of being drowsy and dull, listless and unenergetic, or indifferent and lazy; apathetic or sluggish inactivity.”
Yes.
Behind me is a work table piled with shit I have “been intending to do” for weeks. Some of it, months. In the kitchen is two weeks of laundry I have not folded. The house is a mess. Outside there’s more tasks needing completion than I can count. And my fucking old shop has been neglected for months, too. And instead of doing anything I stare at the computer and have half an eye on some documentary on the TV above me. I do nothing.
Does it matter? Does it fucking matter? In A decade or two I’ll be dead. None of these things will matter. My tools will be taken, given away, sold or trashed. So will everything else in this work-room and in my shop. The house and yard will either be taken care of by someone else or just left to grow up. This dump of a house will either be repossessed or left to rot. So, what’s the point?
I did not want to retire. I was forced into this shit by a hellspittle (hospital) and moron quacks who claim to work there. That’s a horse I won’t beat today, but the lousy fact is, I am retired. And left with nothing but all this junk around me and no desire to fuck with any of it.
When I came home I pushed my way back to my feet in spite of the fuck-head doctors who said I was going to die. A year later I managed to overcome my sense of doom and shucked a lot of weight. I was going to do something. I was going to go places. I didn’t. And didn’t.
Over two years since I spit in the doctor’s eyes and here I sit. I’ve chugged back on twenty pounds. I have been unable to get up and do anything. I no longer even want to. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to even breathe. Everything is boring, useless, not worth the damned effort.
I have no one to talk with all day long. I have no money to go anywhere. I have junk to work with. I have no desire and no reason.
Call me lazy. Throw in apathetic, indifferent, weary, languid, neglectful, somnolent. There was a time not too long ago when I thought a nap was a horrible waste of time. Now, every morning I get up and finish my stat taking and then go back to bed for a couple hours. I’m old and retired, right? It mostly helps the fucking day go by. At least I have people to talk to and interact with in my dreams.
I fought my way back from the edge of death only to wish I hadn’t. If their predictions had come to pass I would not be sitting here listening to my tinnitus and a fan by the morning light and the artificial glow of a couple of screens. I would not be lethargic any more. I would just be out of the way.
I am not suicidal. That’s the chicken-shit way out. I would like to get drunk and stay drunk and get me some more cigars. I miss cigars. I’d eat whatever the fuck I want. Maybe not suicide but an insured quick exit. Maybe the next time I cycle through this world I’ll manage to do a few things I won’t regret. There’s very little I do not regret in this fucked up life.
Being the definition of lethargy does not prevent my brain from working. Sixty years of dumb shit and bad decisions and fucked up situations haunt me. Between luck and stupidity this has been the most fucked up life anyone has ever had.
Yeah, I have done more than any single person. Not brave shit, just different shit. Anyone read my resume they will simply say horse shit. Now all that crap comes back to haunt me. I can’t shut my brain off even as I can’t get it to work in the external world.
I am slowly drowning. Gurrgle gurrgle. Glub glub. And I don’t even care. I am empty, emotionless, despondent, fractured. I don’t even have enough want-to to feel sorry for myself. I just am here. And what’s the point of that?
This is enough. The little spurt of energy I had to write this load of bullshit is gone. I’m done.