UNZIPPED

He puts down the coffee cup with a dull thud and rubs his face with both hands. Almost like stretching, but not, the heavy sigh an attempt to reset the morning before it spins hopelessly out of control, as it tends to do, more days than not. Today could be different though. He just needs to reset. To slow it. Stop it even. The rev up starts again with the beginning of his post sigh inhale. Spinning. 

He’s had the same song in his head for what seems like a year,but that’s probably wrong. The remake only released less than a month ago. It doesn’t play end to end but rather in almost random meaningless order. “When I want to run away...”. The remake reminds him of his youth but moreover of what a masterpiece the song is/was/is. Amazement combined with a twinge of envy, that he didn’t (couldn’t have) written it. 

Maybe the time change is what’s fucking with him. Too little light too early, too much dark too soon. The internal clock hums yet the want is more sleep, even though it’s not really too restful most of these days. These days. 

He considered the chase again yesterday.  For as long as he can remember he hovers in between the space of where he is and “what should/could be if...”. That “if” is always a set of circumstances that can’t be hard worked away, regardless of how hard he tries. There seems to be something people call “luck” (he attributes to chance and work) that some just stumble upon and others seem to always shower in. The latter seems to be what he expects and believes will happen with enough of that hard work. “You make your own luck.” says the online coaching program. Do we though?

The things that usually calm are failing at the moment but when he opens his eyes the first thing each morning, he’s hopeful that the night before didn’t accelerate towards the time he wakes up with an endless supply of stress dreams. The recurring ones. The ones that remind him of why and that erase the hope of a different early morning outcome upon the raising of the lids. Each eyelash separating like a zipper, but with the sound of a lawnmower cord being ripped quickly and the sputter of the unrested engine comes to life. 

He knows a lot of what he should do. He believes we all do, but there’s a force holding him(us) all back. It’s an internal force for sure and it’s more powerful than the required force to offset it. Almost always. He knows he should do some push-ups and he knows a set of those push-ups takes less than a minute. Yet he doesn’t. He’ll do them later. He has this same encounter with most of his day. There’s an abundance of things he needs to do. Most take less than 5 minutes, probably. He won’t start them but will let them occupy space and energy for another day. He knows this because it’s day 5000 and he’s done it that way every one of them. 

He takes his index finger and thumb and runs them from the outsides of his closed eyes to meet at the bridge of his nose. The rev up amplified again with the unzipping of each opening eyelash. 

#hugsandhi5s