Today is one of those mornings that, when I wake up, I immediately have to reach for the pill bottle. I have to force myself to only take one, to wait and see if one pill is good enough. "I'll wait for half an hour before taking the next," I promise myself. My brows furrow slightly as I stare at the ceiling. I check the time every couple of minutes, hoping for the pain to subside.
Waking up is hard enough, but the pain makes it worse. I start surfacing to consciousness, only for my mind to realize the pain I am in. My immediate reaction is to try to retreat back to sleep, so that I can spend another hour with oblivion, rather than the gnawing in my leg. If I'm lucky, I can return to unconsciousness. If I'm not, the pain will take hold and keep me awake, every twist and turn I make to find some comfort only serving to tear ever deeper into my side. I'm sure there is a metaphor in this about the greater experience of life being merely an uncomfortable search for comfort, or being a path of trials to achieve peace.
The half hour passes. I take another pill. I stare out my window, watching the trees sway and people walk down the sidewalk. A fight breaks out. Two men, three women. One of the men and one of the women drove up in a car to confront my neighbors who live across the street. The man from the car is dressed in a nice button up and slacks, everyone else is in pajamas. They all look like fools, wrestling on the ground. Police come after the couple in the car have departed.
The diversion serves as an anesthetic, but only briefly. As the view outside resolves once again into normalcy. My pill bottle catches my eye. It sits on the window sill, about two feet from my head, which rest on my pillow for the vast majority of my day. It's always there. It needs to be.
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