Whatever Label You Prescribe

I've had the furrowed brow of somebody tangling with a Rubik's Cube over the past several weeks.  There's a foreshadowing of understanding.  A dramatic irony wherein the audience can see what's about to happen to me but I'm on the screen and I have no idea.  Some author, probably Vonnegut, wrote a passage wherein a clairvoyant character explained to a human character that their clairvoyance had nothing to do with a special gift or a heightened perceptiveness to the universe, but merely that when you're taller you can see farther down the road.  The feeling I've had lately is that I've been standing on the opposite side of the street, on the corner, and I'm watching myself plod down the other sidewalk along the building.  Walking Me has earbuds in, face canted toward the sidewalk, and the same shoulders-hunched profile that is probably the root of my back problems.  It's a thought I've preoccupied myself with over the past month.  Spine straight.  Shoulders back.  You're slouching again.

Observing Me can see Walking Me on that concrete conveyor belt, but can also see what lies around the corner.  Dog poop on the sidewalk.  Cars whizzing through the intersection.  The play of the light through the leaves of the young ash tree on the corner and the dancing shadows that it casts onto the sidewalk.  It's not a scene of impending doom because I'm still controlling the split personalities.  Observing Me can call out at any time.  Walking Me will likely look up periodically to check for disaster on the horizon.  I still haven't given up the idea of becoming a government spy so I remind myself to be perceptive.  I need to work on inconspicuous if espionage is in my future.

This at-odds feeling with parts of myself has stemmed from a looming awareness of the fact that one day I, and everybody I know, will die.  It's a feeling I've always had.  Right before I fall asleep at night, for as long as I can remember, I have the thought "This is what it will feel like to die."  It's right at that moment when you've closed your eyes and it feels like your consciousness is Sylvester Stallone in Cliffhanger, dangling from the insides of your eyelids, in peril of dropping into the infinity of blackness inside of yourself.  Nirvana, or whatever label you prescribe.  This thought at that precise moment usually either causes me to gasp awake each night like I've caught my first breath after being suffocated or to settle comfortably into sleep knowing the ultimate end result of the fruits of my life.  No matter your outlook, there's an odd comfort in the idea of oblivion.  The reaction doesn't vary night to night, it goes in patterns.  This newest iteration is different.  It's like both ideas are standing eye to eye.  UFC fighters in there pre-bout mean mugging stance.  My reaction has been a combination as well.  I'm getting a fair amount of sleep every night but it isn't restful.  I'm not constantly distracted but I'm only able to muster around 83% focus at any one time.  It's limbo, but there's no stick or accompanying music.

And this is where my Observer/Walker analogy spawns from.  The sense that while I can't see the Magic Eye picture the authorities assure me that I will if I keep staring.  The thing has been sapped of its despair.  The feeling that there may be all manner of obstructions ahead and treacherous, broken pavement hidden by thick fogs but I am able to help myself by calling across the street and asking if the record store is on the next block or if it's two down.