4 AM
All Posts,  Life Skills,  My Depression,  My Diet,  Quit Smoking

Four In The Morning

I’ve been on overnight shifts lately so, even though today was my day off, I’m in overnight mode.  I woke up at 11 pm wondering what to do with the night.

I tried the television but Victoria Principal was on trying to sell me her skin care products.  I watched for a while.  I remember her from the TV series, Dallas, and she has hardly aged at all since then.  I watched and wondered if I should call and order some of her products but then they showed how to use it.

I struggle to take my antidepressant every day let alone remember to use three or four skin products twice a day!  I wouldn’t use it so there’s no point buying it.

I flicked the channel and there were more celebrities telling me to buy Proactiv acne treatment and I thought maybe I could get that for my daughter.  She still has break-outs but I don’t think she is any better at using things regularly than me so I decided not to buy that either.

I flicked the channel some more and found football, a test pattern and a black and white movie.  I hate football so I watched the movie.  It was really just a vehicle for American propaganda and centred on a town under Nazi occupation.  No wonder they won the war.  I would have sung the American National anthem in a fever of induced patriotism at the end if I had known the words even though I am not American!

Whenever there is nothing to do I tend to want to eat so I went to the fridge.  I’ve canceled the diet food order but have not yet been shopping so there was nothing in the fridge but two health bars.  I ate them.

I have canceled my diet due to a lack of interest in their food and I have already put two kilos back on.  I will go back onto the diet as soon as I get over my newly discovered dislike of whole grains and health foods.

Outside the wind was blowing and I heard it start to rain as I munched, reluctantly but hungrily, on the health food bars.

I try to keep at least one window open all the time to stop myself from choking on the smoke from my cigarettes but there is a wooden chest under the window.  I don’t want rain ruining it so I closed the window.

With the window closed I decided to try out my newly repaired heater.  It’s chilly and the heater has been broken for two years now.  The man came to fix it yesterday.  He said the thermostat was dusty.  I have gone cold for two years because of dust?

I asked if I could keep it from happening again by vacuuming it like he did and he said no.  He said taking the cover off was necessary but I might electrocute myself if I do that.

I guess I better keep my oil heater handy just in case dust kills my electric wall heater again.

After some more channel flicking I turned off the TV and turned on the computer.  I started writing about nothing and it wasn’t long before I ran out of nothing to write about so I went to stand by the heater and absorb some warmth.

Only cold air was coming out.  I sighed and wondered how dust could gather so fast but then I decided to put my glasses back on and make sure I had it on the right setting.  I had it on summer so I turned it to winter and warm air began flowing.

It was nice getting instant heat for a change but the closed window was already taking it’s toll on the air and I had a coughing fit.

It added to my resolve to make my next home a smoke free one.  It’s too late for this place.  The walls are already smoke stained and I am too used to smoking inside here but my next home will be smoke free.  If I move in with my kids as we are planning it has to be a smoke free zone for the health of my non-smoking daughter but I am slowly coming to the conclusion it has to be smoke free for my own health too.  I smoke only half as much when I can’t smoke in the house.

After renewing my resolve not to smoke inside in the next place I live, and recovering from the coughing fit, I lit a smoke.  Curse the addiction and double curse the habit!

Another check of the fridge showed me nothing had materialised in there since I last looked so back to the computer.  Once again I quickly ran out of nothing to write about so back to the heater for a bit then back to the fridge.

Still nothing had materialized but I discovered another packet of health food bars.  They were the first ones I bought and they are even healthier than the ones I just ate.  So healthy they taste like crap and I don’t think I will ever get desperate enough to eat them but I keep them just in case.

I’m not desperate enough tonight so I put them back and return to the computer.

There’s a lot I could write about.  Life, love, the state of the world, politics, but it’s now five in the morning and all I can think about is work.

All those unhappy people who call every day saying they want to die and what is there to live for.  They are often awake in the early hours of the morning and their minds turn to all that is wrong in their lives.

Mine used to as well before I went on the antidepressants and got counselling.  Not tonight.

Tonight I am not thinking about health problems, the lack of a love life, the blasted speeding fine I just got or the failure to stop at a stop light fine I am still waiting for.

Well, I wasn’t thinking about them, a speeding fine of all things!

ME!  Speeding!  In my old car!  My kids won’t believe it when I tell them.  They think I drive too slow and I am often beeped at for taking off too slow.  I thought the speed limit was 60 and I was clocked at 59 but the limit is 50.  I didn’t believe it until I drove the route again.  I passed THREE speed limit 50 signs in the first couple of blocks.  I have been driving that route for almost three years and never saw them before.  I think they planted them to get fine revenue!

What puzzles me is they got the speeding fine notice to me in less than two weeks.  On the way home from work two or three months ago two policeman pulled me up and said I had gone through a red light and would be getting a fine for it.  I did not recall seeing a red light but it was 2am and I was not taking a lot of notice.  I told them I thought it was yellow.  I’m still waiting for that fine.

If I could fail to see three speed limit signs three times a week for three whole years I guess the light probably was red.

Which brings me back to the point I was trying to make.  We see what we want to see.  We find what we look hardest for.  When I was depressed I could only see the negative things in my life.  Now I dismiss them and focus on the positive things.

Right here, right now, I am warm and comfortable.  I could be focused on the cost of electricity to run the heater or the bare, extremely bare, state of my fridge.  I could be thinking about the man I want who I will never see again or the failure to reach my diet goal and so on.

Instead I am focused on the fact that I will never have this hour again so why ruin it thinking about things I can do nothing about right now.

It’s almost six in the morning and I am warm and comfortable.  The health food bars may not have been what I would like to have eaten but I am no longer hungry.  There’s nothing on TV and nothing to do but my computer is working so I can write about nothing and write with warm fingers!  I don’t have to work tomorrow so my inability to sleep doesn’t matter.

Tomorrow will come and bring with it whatever it contains and I can worry about what comes then.  When, indeed IF, it comes.  For now, right this minute, I will post this entry and warm myself by the heater.  I may play a computer game or go back to bed.  Whichever I prefer I can do.

Nothing bad is happening right now.  Nothing crucial is missing right now.  There are things I would LIKE to have that are missing such as a pizza or the lips of the man I love but I am not hungry or cold or homeless.

I can enjoy the feeling of being safe and warm or I can ruin this hour thinking about what is missing.  Since beating the depression I much prefer to look for what is good than focus on what is bad and it is a much better way to live.

I just wish some of those callers at work would try it.  It might help them too.

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