the grinding that refused to stop.

So... I have to be at work in about six or so hours and I can not sleep.  This is common to me when I don't drink.  The problem I have learned over the years that you exercise parts of your body and they become proficient in their intended activity.  Cyclists ride and work on their legs to ride faster.  Writers think.

Have you ever had to "brainstorm" in some class just to see what you could come up with?  I remember fellow students who were asked to brainstorm for ten minutes and it was an exercise in agony.  After ten minutes, they would have two or three ideas.  I would have about a dozen, mostly unintelligible as I was trying to get my pen to work as fast as my brain, accompanied with sub-ideas for each to take the original thought in a variety of directions.

It still works today.  I never stop coming up with things to write about.  Not all of it is worth my time to try to sit down and make something of it, but I jot down notes all the time just in case I want to remember the idea later.

unfortunately, when I'm trying to sleep, this process of idealizing every little thought continues.  I try to shut it down, but end up sinking deeper into my mind and to a place that is dark and dismal.  I begin to analyze things I wish to forget.  I fabricate scenarios, living out painful memories and ideas.  I fictionalize why people have hurt me with what i have to go on.  I find my heart loathing and grinding with pain and hatred.  Depression bleeds from my mind, and I find myself again in that place where I need to stop the brain from thinking.

There is a little dive bar just down the street.  The bartender there looks like he belongs there.  I walk in,  surrounded by people I would never fathom having conversations with as they are people who can easily entertain themselves with jocular competitions and mindless television.  I step up to the bar and wait my turn to be noticed.  I hold up three fingers and ask for three shots of whiskey.  The bartender repeats this back and I nod; though he no longer seems surprised.  He sets 3 small shot glasses before me and pours 3 shots to the rim.  I take one by one allowing no more that two seconds between each as he takes my cash to make change.  He returns, the whiskey is gone, and I take my change.  I leave a tip on the bar and I'm out the door.

I always return home and then wait for the subtle but gentle caresses of whiskey to slow down that darkened voice of my mind.  And now, I will again lay my head to my pillow and listen to the music of my choosing for the night and pray my mind will shut the fuck up so I can sleep...