Tonight I lost myself for a while,

in a glance and a sound,

in found things connected to people I once was

or knew.

I sat, cross-legged on my floor for some time, sifting through the debris of my current obsessive reorganization and purge of old items.  I found tapes of my first band’s demo, and of a demo I made for a shady “producer” before I’d broken off and started my first solo project.  I might have found an even earlier recording of songs, and ideas for a musical I wrote in HS, but it was recorded at half speed and I need a better way to parse through it.

And I’ve been so proud of my health this weekend.  I broke barriers with run-time, and with weights.  I see the difference each time I catch a reflection and I was told more than a few times that I’m looking good.

And in my cross-legged-ness in my cold room, no socks, hours in the ether, I guess a toe decided to sleep.  Come bedtime I stood and noticed a nail was white, rather than pinkish like the others, and that the whole thing didn’t want to move when I curled my feet.

I remembered, then, how people with diabetes lose toes, and feet, and eyes.  And I got worried.  I got under my covers and rubbed my toe, flexed it, shook my feet.

It took about twenty minutes but the feeling and the color came back.  It wiggles with all the other piggies just fine now.

But there it is.  Right there, just below me.

My future.

I can hit the weights as hard as my will allows, and I have.  I can push my heart and lungs to their absolute screaming max, and I have.  I can sacrifice my happiness in eating each and every meal (and missed snack).  My A1C can remain below diabetic level.  My numbers can all be flawless.

But someday it’ll catch me.

And I don’t know what I’ll do when that day comes.  I’ve lost so much of myself already.  I can’t fathom losing physical chunks too.
I’ve always been awful at sleep.

And people who don’t have issues try to fathom how, and why.  How could it be so hard to do something everybody does, they wonder.  Isn’t it a natural thing?

It is.  And should be.

Until your brain starts playing with all the possible scenarios.

How many toes can you lose and still jog?  Can you get disability if your foot falls off?  Your leg?

These are things that keep me up all night.  Every night.  Since I was 8 or so, when the sleep problems began.  The brain whirls and the psyche is tossed like a rag-doll through thought and whim, darkness and wonder, until finally the body gives in and releases for a few merciful hours.

So I can wake up and do it all over again.