871. Cry for Help

The rest of that day was uneventful. For me, I should clarify. Ziggy had another non-stop day and the rest of the band and crew had whatever adventures and dramas they were having. I’m sure there were some. Me, I mostly slept. I think I was recovering from being at high altitude and also maybe some of the other physical stresses I was dealing with were catching up to me.

Sleep was undoubtedly good for me.

What wasn’t as good was that night I had insomnia from having slept too much during the day. Two of my usual insomnia cures–masturbation and playing the guitar–were likely to have bad consequences for my hand, so were unavailable for me. The third–bourbon–I was determined not to have. I had decided a while back, you might recall, back in the Nomad tour, that if I wasn’t an alcoholic then I had better stop acting like one.

So where did that leave me? Lying awake in the dark hours of the night, worrying about things.

I probably lay there torturing myself with fucked up thoughts for two hours before I gave in and searched Flip’s bags. He slept through it and I felt like if someone was getting a good night’s sleep it would be sacreligious for me to disturb that. I found the Vitamin F before the alcohol. I remembered what he had said about me getting used to it. I concluded that taking one now was the equivalent of taking a half a couple of weeks ago.

So I took one and went back to bed.

Before it could take effect, I lay there trying to quiet my thoughts. But although I could convince myself that various thoughts were made-up crap, I couldn’t convince myself my feelings were invalid. Like the feeling that Ziggy was avoiding me. He’s not avoiding you on purpose, I tried to tell myself. He has perfectly good reasons.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

Shit. How did I get myself in this situation again?

I just wanted to go home. And by “home” I realized I was thinking of Ziggy’s apartment. I found myself feeling something I don’t think I’d ever felt before: homesick. I’d never really understood what that word meant before that. I’d never longed to be somewhere I wasn’t before. The closest I had come to it was when I was a kid and Remo had moved to LA, I missed him and the guys and being able to hang out in his living room anytime I needed a refuge.

This felt sort of like that, but it ached in my bones in a way I’d never felt before. It was similar in that the person who left me this time was separated from me not by miles but by circumstances. Circumstances that sucked, as far as I was concerned.

Maybe that’s why I was feeling abandoned. Because being abandoned that time had left such a deep scar? I kept thinking I was over it, but maybe there was no getting over it. Maybe I was just broken.

Yeah, back to that old thought: I’m too fucked up for it to ever really get better. By then I knew that kind of thought was depression——my number one symptom, in fact. Knowing that didn’t make me feel better.

I cried myself to sleep.

4 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *