Jonny Numb

Lean back. Stay back. Just…keep back.

Such has been my philosophy for most of my adult life. I’m not saying don’t be emotional – because Lord knows we humans can’t help it sometimes (it just happens) – but…

Be cautious.

Be vigilant.

Above all – as Jeremy Irons might sing – be aware.

I used to bottle up my angst.

Then I came to the conclusion that angst was, for the most part, silly (a holdover from an over-dramatic youth where the universe circulated around my well-being (and mine alone).

Youthful Angst eventually metamorphosed into Adult Stress.

And, with the onset of a “career” and the financial expectations that follow, I often found myself too busy – and too stressed-out – to ponder a recurring thought:

“What am I doing?”

Sometimes stress would arise from the sheer volume of work on my plate; at other times, it would be the strained interactions with the population we served; usually, it was a combination of the two.

Above all, there was this pervasive feeling of, “just how much of this can I take before I snap?”

Now: that hasn’t been the case for many years, so don’t worry (too much) about me.

To paraphrase Homer Simpson: “Things have been good in my rut.”

It’s been a while since I’ve had a day where my guts get knotted over a mistake (which is usually inflated and catastrophized in my mind) or dread over a scheduled interaction weighted me down into a hunchbacked position.

The snowball effect (or “shit” effect) seems very real, rolling downhill until it creates an avalanche. I suppose it’s good to know that, despite being in my 40s and thinking I can take on anything with a shrug, stress still has the ability to sneak up and pitch a tent and a cozy, big fire in my brain, settling in for the long, paranoid winter.

For many years, this marked every single Sunday night – a time when the stressors and transgressions of the week prior would fall like a thick file folder, flattening my gray matter into a pancake as it tried, desperately, to fall asleep whilst being tormented by recent memories of things that were dead, done, dust – and couldn’t be changed – but which I still couldn’t stop thinking about.

This, of course, was back during the cuckoo-madness of going into an actual office five days a week. Thank Pandemic Jesus that’s no longer the case.

To that end, never forget: “Jesus…had days like this.”

And, this past week, that file folder of collective stress hovered overhead, and was catalyzed into freefall by a series of unfortunate developments that found me in a strange state of metaphysical paralysis, wherein I was affected to the point of feeling unable to do much of anything except sit, wait, and listen for the latest developments in a shitstorm.

There were a handful of lingering aspects that bothered me to the point of distraction, and cycled through my mind on an endless, unstoppable loop on one recent Wednesday.

That same Wednesday, a co-worker talked to me about dissociating during a job interview, and that is probably a more accurate descriptor of how I felt.

(the soul is trying to detach from the body while the physical workings chug along on autopilot)

My brain continued in a nauseous tilt-a-whirl motion that continued as I took the stairwell to the street exit outside my building, even though I tried telling my brain to STOP a couple dozen times.

When I opened the door, I was greeted by the somewhat absurd – at the very least, unexpected – image of a large black gentleman, sans shirt, sitting on a bench and getting his hair styled by a female companion.

I quickly blinked away from this image, but offered my obligatory friendly smile before doing so.

I would say I experienced a wave of second-hand embarrassment at having witnessed this image, even though the gentleman appeared completely relaxed, having no qualms with sitting out in a partially shaded alcove near an otherwise busy public intersection, sans shirt.

I realized I kind of envied his lack of self-consciousness – I don’t even like to go to beaches or pools because I’m mortified at the notion of walking around shirtless.

As I walked past, eyes to the sidewalk as I approached the pedestrian crossing, he said:

“Hey-hey-hey!”

So of course I looked back, thinking I’d dropped something.

When I didn’t see anything, I glanced back at the gentleman, who smiled and said:

“Gotcha!”

I held his glance for a moment, grinned, and pointed.

“Good one,” I said, and continued on my way.

I didn’t take any ill intent from the joke, since he seemed otherwise preoccupied by the task at hand (or hair, in this case), and there was a knowing innocence to his smile.

Maybe there’s a lesson in the couple seconds I spent in his presence. Perhaps he picked up on the energy radiating from a fellow who’d had a day from hell, and decided, in a quick instance, to do something to lighten it up – to remove some of the weight of that heavy file folder pressing into his consciousness.