Chapter 19: The Terror of Transformation

Nov .13th 2018

I began studying sign language last night. As I’ve mentioned, I am left mute from time to time, sometimes for up to 22 hours. If the battery dies on my phone and I am caught without pencil and paper I’m S.O.L. I already know a little sign that I learned when I was in my twenties. A friend’s son was deaf. I’ve discovered that signing while driving stick is a bitch. I don’t recommend it.

The last few months as you know by read The Oak I’ve been remembering and re-evaluating my past. I’m still doing so. In a sense I can say I’m being driven to do it or rather it’s happening and I can either embrace it or fight it. Something like this happened to me in my mid twenties and I fought it and it nearly killed me. You can see part of it reflected in “The Freya Cycle” I was fundamentally changing as a person and I didn’t like it. I fought it because I was scared of becoming something unknown. I’m a stubborn bastard. I fought until I went borderline insane in the clinical sense of the word. Now, It’s happening again.

It’s funny when you look at the past you notice things you’ve never seen before. I realized this week that I had never spent the night at my father’s mother’s home or at any member of his side of the family’s house. Once I had moved to the South that can be looked over, but before then? I realized yesterday I had never even been in most of her house. I had been on the front porch, living room, bathroom, and kitchen. She wasn’t rich these were coal miners. My sister and I just weren’t welcome.

My maternal grandmothers house I knew every nook and cranny of. I could tell you what was in most drawers and closets except granny’s bedroom dresser and closet because there were guns in there. The point is I never noticed these things until this week.

Why do I bring this up? It’s part of the underlying process I’ve been going through. My illness has put me into a crash course. I’ve been sad the last few days. I don’t feel productive. I’ve been working about 10 hours a week. I did put in a full 8 yesterday. I hear people talking about their dreams and goals for the future and I can’t afford the pain of having any.

When I wrote about being overwhelmed in the bank two chapters ago I didn’t mention that I was having full blown for lack of a better word dementia like symptoms. I knew why we were there but didn’t understand what was going on. I was arguing about what papers go into what envelope and other silly behaviour. At one point my wife laid her head down on the desk. I was an overgrown 5 year old. I knew what was going on and I couldn’t stop it. It was that day my wife said I could use CBD no matter what the doctors say. I still had some and it helps keep that shit in check.

Why didn’t I mention it when I wrote about it then? It’s humiliating. Every time it happens it brings me one step closer to the nursing home. Thinking about it scares me. If I don’t write about it I don’t have to think about it. At the same time, I told you guys I would keep it real. So here it is.

Thinking back, I saw this life stage change coming even before my illness. Right after my granddaughter was born I was wondering what next. I had met my life goal. I was satisfied. I had done what I had set out to do in life. Now, I felt adrift. About a month or so later I was laying in bed half a sleep when an image came into my mind. It was of an egg shaped cell with a Fibonacci symbol inside of it plunging into an endless calm black ocean in the night. It didn’t make a single ripple. I understood.