I want to sleep, but my mind won't shut up.

It's far too late, but my mind won't stop. And, as I have nothing better to do, and nowhere else to put it, I might as well cast my words into the void. Here's hoping this helps. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, but apparently I need to get it down.

Trigger warning: 20 tonnes of concentrated, dehydrated shit, in a 10lb bag.

I. Am. Not. Okay.

It's a simple little lie. Someone asks "How are you?" and I reply "Oh, just fine". I'm really not. I'm a fucking mess, but I know they don't really want to hear it, and I really don't want to tell them. Telling them means acknowledging it, making it real. If I can just make everyone believe everything's fine, it'll all be perfect, right? And I'm good at lying, apparently.

I live in a house that looks like a bomb's hit it, and smells worse, and it's entirely my own fault. I am overweight and lazy and so apathetic about everything, because it doesn't make a difference. I have been living here for 6 years now, and am an illegal alien in this country. I can't work, I can't do anything, and if I get sick or hurt, I can't get any kind of coverage. The paperwork to get me legal has been filled out (at least, my half of it), but it's not been filed yet. Why? Apathy. It's a stupid amount of paperwork that has to be completed and verified, and it's not a guarantee of anything. And processing will take from 2-3 years. The fees have been paid, but wether they still have record of that or not is anybody's guess. And there's really no good reason for it, at all.

My wife, Deb, is working her ass off in retail once again, and her wage is almost good enough for us to survive on. Almost. We're not quite up to our eyebrows in debt, but they are calling, and we are occasionally having to rob Peter to pay Paul, as the saying goes. Deb is working hard, and stressed to the nines, exhausted and weary, physically and emotionally, every single day. She needs me to be her rock, that stalwart companion she can stand with and shelter from the world, and I can be that for her. I can give that impression, sure. She knows things aren't going well for me, she feels I might be a little bit depressed.

I spend every day distracting myself. I watch porn. I play videogames, badly, on easy, while sitting in an empty TeamSpeak server, and stream them to a Twitch channel that nobody watches. I write contributions to a bot and host it, just to get a little recognition. Some days it feels like I am a non-entity. If I was struck by lightning tomorrow, I can count on two hands, maybe three if I'm generous, the number of people who would notice and care. My family is 5,000 miles away, and I feel every inch of that distance some days. I have two or three friends. I act as someone else online, because I know nobody would want to know, would really care, about the real me underneath. I'm just not that interesting, not that important. Duller than dishwater.

I worry for Deb. Her health is not that good, but I can't do anything about that. She is stressing over money, as am I, and I can't do anything about that either. I can't bring money into the house to help with bills because I am currently unemployable. All I have that is in any way nice is a matter of charity or pity. I have $0 to my name, and that's not likely to change in the future. I want to be able to do something. Anything. I want to have a life, I want to make a difference. I want to be somebody, but right now all I'm doing is taking up space. I don't feel, I can't feel. Because if I do, I'm going to feel all of this shit, and it's going to overwhelm me, it's going to break me, and I can't be broken. I can't go anywhere, I can't do anything. I can't even leave, because we can't afford the funery expenses, and besides which I would never do that to Deb. I love her too much to put her through that.

And, most of all, it hurts. Deb is questioning if I actually care. I do. So very much. I care about all this shit. I want to do something, I *NEED* to do something, but I can't. Because it's too big, it's too much. I can't break it into small, bite-sized pieces and deal with it, because it's all intertwined, it's one solid lump. So I push it away, push it aside. I don't let it affect me, don't let it in.

So many things, so many ways, have I found to distract myself from dealing with this crap. And each time I've burned out. I'm burned out on life, and my brain won't let it go, won't let me sleep.

My shoes are too tight. But it doesn't matter, because I have forgotten how to dance.

And writing all this down, casting it into the ether like this? It does nothing. It doesn't help, it doesn't make a fucking ounce of difference, not a single god-damned thing. But at least my mind has quietened a little. Perhaps now I can sleep.