THE ANSWER

If you are looking for change, start with the weather: The highs and lows for Brownsville are 92 and 77. The highs and lows for Mexico City are 72 and 55. 

For the first time in months I slept the entire night undisturbed by nightmares. I didn't drink yesterday, I had a light workout and I took two milligrams of Xanax. I wanted to go down for the count. I succeeded.

I awoke at seven. When you are suffering from mental illness, you don't want to rise. In Brownsville I've been succumbing to new lows with the added burden that I have increased my drinking dramatically. It's not because I'm not occupied. It's because my mental state has deteriorated. Due to late nights stumbling back to my cell, I have a hard time climbing out of bed in the morning.

I have suffered from anxiety all my life. I frequently slept-walk although I have no idea if that is symptomatic of anything. I would still battle the nightmares even after I had fled the darkness of sleep.

I had a father, grandfather and favorite uncle who were alcoholics. The rest of the aunts and uncles were tipplers. I can remember going to the refrigerator as a child to retrieve a beer for my dad. I would take a sip from his can and the suds would burn a pathway down my throat.

As an altar boy, the wine remaining in the cruet that the priest hadn't magically turned into the blood of Christ, I would swallow after mass with the thirst of Dracula. I have been smoking pot for more than sixty years. I have been taking Xanax for more than twenty. Drink and drugs have played a key role in my life, both positively and negatively.

I read Zen. I don't practice Zen, but I believe in its philosophy, most importantly when it comes to its rejection of materialism and a god. I comprehend that achieving detachment through meditation, keeping the body free of intoxicants and controlling desire, particularly carnal cravings, is a formula for a regulated life and a good death, but I'm addicted to life's pleasures. I like having fun via drugs, drink and sex. I was raised a Catholic and an Our Father and two Hail Marys were my ticket to heaven and eternal bliss.

Presently, I hardly smoke pot after being diagnosed with COPD and am still fearful that a dormant COVID could attack my lungs. I have valiantly countered my excesses through regular exercise, a well-rounded diet and rest. I have never been in a situation that I was so busy I couldn't take a nap as well as have plenty of time for sleep even if I were partying unto the wee hours.

Since I don't have to struggle to my feet in the morning and I can write and exercise in the afternoon and early evening, I have been consuming too much alcohol and my belly reflects the intake. But I am sick. When you're sick, you get from one day to the next the best way you can. In my case that means abusing alcohol, marijuana, alprazolam, the Xanax generic, and sex. It is called surviving the moment.

Life is filled with winning and losing streaks. When you have been on a losing streak, you have to reverse momentum. How do you reverse momentum? I decided that Mexico City might be a partial solution as a change of locales. 

I threw off the sheets this morning, dressed for exercising and walked through the crisp morning air attired in sweats to the gym. It was the best workout I have had in months. A combination of weights and Yankee yoga (pushups, situps and stretching) started my day the way I should start all my days. This regimen is a form of meditation.

What is my mental illness? It was the answer to a question after Olivia and I had made love that traumatized me and left me permanently obsessed. I couldn't believe that this beautiful woman had had such an ugly past. The same thoughts about her licentiousness circulate in my mind hour after hour, day after day, month after month and year after year. One question. One answer. Mercilessly, the gods condemned me as a result of my bad karma to a Sisyphean sentence.

It is the torment, the incessant torture that I can temporarily push away, but it rolls back and crushes me. Fortunately, I have found that in my pursuit of writing, an artist must be bedeviled. You have to be driven and I keep rolling that rock up the hill even though I know it's a futile effort. That is the condition that I am endeavoring to escape.

I have seen rays of sunshine softened by the rain in Mexico City, but I refuse to fool myself. I know from experience that there will be many stormy days ahead. I have sinned too much. My redemption lies through penance.

If Sisyphus was Grecian mythology, Catholicism is mine. But penance is a joke for a Catholic. After muttering the required prayers as well as the Act of Contrition after confession, I would go back to lying to my parents, stealing pocket change and hitting my younger siblings. Venial sins served their purpose as a gateway vice to committing mortal sins with little guilt. I accept that I am a condemned prisoner degenerating behind bars with the sole consolation that my suffering enhances my fiction.

One answer to one question ruined my life. I should have known, but I was beset with jealousy.