Stir Crazy

I sit here, almost perfectly still, but inside I’m thrumming. I have this urge to move, fast, in some random direction.

All winter I’ve been trapped inside. Trapped by the cold, by my lack of mobility, my lack of money. I only leave the home for errands, doctor visits, and the rare outing. My whole world becomes defined by the same set of streets, the same spot in the apartment. Day after day, dragging on. The sun sets too early, and I sit, surrounded by darkness except for the small light and the glare from my computer screen.

I am trapped still.

Driving in my car, to the store or back home, I am seized with this urge to just keep driving. To go somewhere new, see something different, do something outside the norm. I just want to go somewhere. See what’s around the corner, what’s around the river bend. I want to explore. I want to escape, if only for a little while. I want to see where the wind takes me.

I just want to keep driving and see where I end up. Maybe with some goal in mind: maybe seeing a friend I’ve been dying to meet in person, or helping another friend for a few days as she tries to get settled. Maybe without some goal, just driving where my instincts take me, till I find some place I can sit in the sun and let my head clear.

I want the wind blowing through me and around me to clear away the cobwebs and the dust of the last few months. I want to sun to warm up the dark places inside me. I want a few moments of self-imposed solitude, rather than the loneliness forced on me through circumstance.

I want change, just for a little while. Just to refresh me, so that I can come back just a little bit lighter, reminded of the fact that freedom still exists.

But reality traps me. I am imprisoned in a cage made of poverty and disability. I can’t afford to go on an adventure. I can barely afford my medication to keep my body free from pain. I can’t afford a vacation, to escape from my existence. I can’t take a break for even a moment, to forget that I have to scramble constantly, to make sure we can find some way to make sure that are lives are a little more stable, just that little bit less desperate. To find some way to afford Alyssa’s transition, and maybe get what I need to make my meds stop hurting my throat.

I am trapped by my own body, which won’t let me explore in any way without the mobility assistance of a vehicle. I am trapped by pain, which makes it unreasonable for me to travel anywhere where I cannot access my medication.

So inside I thrum, with unspent mental energy desperately looking for an outlet. With a fierce wanderlust, almost like pain, beckoning me elsewhere. I feel trapped and so I close in further on myself. I become claustrophobic, not of the space I am in, but in the trapped feeling inside my own mind. Old thoughts start to swirl around, scolding me for all the ways in which I am a disappointment. My feeling of being trapped drains my motivation, making it that much harder to finish orders, or write new posts, or work on other stories that I could maybe sell.

I seek refuge in sleep, in the escape dreams afford me, but even that is not enough anymore.

I just want just a few short moments of freedom.


 

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Stir Crazy
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2 thoughts on “Stir Crazy

    1. 1.1

      I appreciate that, and thank you for the hugs.

      The other day, I was even trying to figure out how much it would be to drive to Colorado for a week to visit some friends. It’s the realities of being poor and disabled lol.

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