I slept like crap again last night, tossing and turning, waking periodically. It sucks, I hate it, but it’s always been this way.

At 11:30 my body informed me it was tired, and that it was time to go to bed. At midnight I had the light out, in bed, ready to sleep. OK! We’re ready to sleep! OK, it’s time to sleep! Here we go! Annnnnnnnnnd… sleep!

Three hours later I’m still staring at the alarm clock that I love so much, its neon blue numbers staring back at me, taunting me.

I’ll try this side of the bed. No, how about this side? Now I’ll lay on my left side. Nah, how about the right side? Back and forth, trying everything, nothing working. Why couldn’t I sleep? I mean, I was TIRED, man. I was ready, too. I wanted to sleep, but it wasn’t happening. Why?

When I turn out the lights it’s like a signal to my brain to go into overdrive.

I spend so much time during the day occupying my brain, preventing thought on that which I should be focusing on. I go to school, pay attention to my lectures, come home and read/study/write… Then I relax with some Cartoon Network or some video games, and I turn out the lights. And then it starts.

How long will you live? Will you work until 62, live a couple years, and then die? How long will your friends live? Wouldn’t it be cool to live well into my 80s like Papa Earl, having a fulfilling life? Or will my lifestyle shave years off my life? How much longer will my parents be alive? They’re not looking so hot for two folks in their early 60s. What will I say at my father’s funeral?

Why the fuck am I thinking about these things when I’m laying in bed, trying to sleep? Why am I thinking these things when I’m only 32 years old, for that matter? Then the present takes over.

NorCal or SoCal, Chico or Long Beach? Railroad in Roseville or Long Beach? Or should I take a chance and try to make it was a writer? Nah, you have no talent, Tom. You can’t write, Tom. You have no formal training—you’re just a hack. Nobody cares about what you have to say anyway. Hey, Chico sure is nice, don’t you want to live here? What about Long Beach, don’t you miss Belmont Shore? Your friends? What if I run into Cindy, or Rosemary on 2nd Street? What will you do?

Why can’t I make up my mind? Why can’t I just settle on a career and do it? Why do I have to make things so difficult? Why can’t I just give up, and go along with everyone else?

By this time it’s 4am. I think I fell asleep for a little bit, but not very long. At any rate, I’m still awake, staring at the clock, now staring at the moon-lit window, and still thinking about shit. Finally, sleep comes and blesses me with her song.

It’s light outside and I’m awake again. What the fuck is that buzzing noise? I look at my watch. 7am. What the FUCK? I sit up in bed. There’s that buzzing noise again. You’ve got to be fucking shitting me. My neighbor is outside with his skilsaw, hacking up pieces of 2×4. Can I catch a break? Please? I have to be up in two hours.

I turn on my air conditioner, full blast. I turn on every computer I own. I turn on every fan I own. There. Hopefully this will drown out Mr. Assfuck’s god damn skilsaw. I hope he cuts off his fingers. Finally, I fall back asleep.

I dream. I’m there again, and I can see their faces—vividly—every one of them. I know every compartment, every door, and every ladder. I can hear the hum of the engines. I can smell that fucking PVC smell they used on the floors. I smell the fuel. I’m running through the hallways, looking for a way out. Lieutenant Risken blocks my way, and I try to barrel through him. Fireman Williams grabs me, makes a joke, and gets in my way. I punch him as hard as I can, knocking him out. I grab his body and throw it overboard, into the icy cobalt sea. Another sailor attacks me with a screwdriver and I’m forced to draw my knife. I inform him to stop, or I will defend myself. His beady eyes narrow and a devious grin spreads wide across his lips. He attacks me. I stab him repeatedly in the neck and face, while trying to hold back his attacks. The other officers are there, watching us. They join in, all attacking me at once. I run.

It’s 9am and the alarm is going off. I’m soaking wet. My heart feels like it is leaping out of my chest. I feel like I’m going to vomit. I sit bolt upright, try to focus. It was just a dream, I say to myself, breathing very heavily.

I’m free. I’m free, it was just a dream.

Nine years after getting out of the Navy I’m still having nightmares. Why won’t these go away? I wish they would just go away…

I couldn’t eat breakfast, my stomach was in knots. I walked to school this morning, creeped out, exhausted, feeling a little depressed.

This feeling stays with me all day. Now it’s late afternoon, and I still feel weary. I feel tired. I feel defeated. I feel sick. I always feel this way after a Navy nightmare. It lasts a couple days, and then it goes away.

It sucks, I hate it, but it’s always been this way.

Where is your head tonight, Tom Bissell?

My brain hurts from all the thinking I’ve done. I go round and round, not solving anything. I sigh deeply and turn off all the lights. I slump into my captain’s chair in the dark, tilt the seat back, and interlace my fingers behind my aching head. The glow from all the electronic equipment in the room gives me light enough to see by. I fidget in my chair, then get up to open the doors and windows. I sit back down in silence.

The lawn sprinklers from across the street come on, and make their rat-tat-tat sound as they sweep back and forth. Looking over the top of my desk and out the window I can see the clear night sky filled with stars. Each one looks like a tiny pin-prick in a sheet of blackness. I wonder just how long it took the light from that star, or that one, to reach Earth. How many millions of years has it traveled across time and space to be here with me now? I wonder if it’s even still there? Or did it burn out eons ago? Time marches ever onward, with or without you Tom Bissell.

I feel small sitting in my studio apartment tonight. I stare at the clock and watch the neon digital numbers change from minute to minute. 2:04. 2:05. 2:06. The display is burned in my vision, like the sun when you squint to the horizon trying to make out a tiny sail, or object, or whatever. I close my eyes and I can still see the clock display. Time is marching ever onward Tom Bissell, with or without you.

What are you going to do? It’s coming down to the wire. 10 years of education are finally coming to its logical conclusion. I’m graduating in less than four weeks. No more student loans. No more papers and reading and studying. No more all-nighters. No more, “Where do you work?” “I don’t, I’m a full time student.” The next chapter in the book of Tom Bissell is about to start. Wouldn’t it be nice if I knew how it would begin?

My stomach grumbles, so I get up and head to the kitchen. I decide it’s too late to eat, so I pour myself a glass of nonfat milk into my favorite Sierra Nevada pint glass. I walk outside, onto my balcony, wearing only my boxer shorts, a white tshirt, and holding my glass of milk. The air is crisp and clean and I inhale deeply. I imagine I have holes in the bottom of my feet, and as I exhale I can feel the air descending through my legs and out the soles of my peds. My soul feels uplifted, and I turn my gaze upward once again to the stars.

Are these the same stars my ancestors gazed up at? The ancient Greeks? Romans? In another time, perhaps thousands of years ago, did a young man ponder his existence in the same way I do now? Did he feel the same emotions I do at this moment—fear, doubt, loss? Fear of the unknown—what’s going to happen to me? Doubt of my abilities—will I make a decent living? Loss of self—I am no longer a college student, so who am I? I’m getting dizzy again, so I head back inside.

I slump back down in my chair in the same manner as before. Nothing resolved and nothing solved, the same problems and questions remain. I wish I had someone to talk to at this hour of the night. Instead I simply have this website.

And so I sit down to write.

When I got out of jail… errr… I mean, the Navy nine years ago I moved back to Long Beach. Six months prior, I had returned from my wanderings overseas and moved into a condo with my girlfriend at the time, Kim. We lived together for just six months, that was all I could stand.

Kim was your classic type ‘A’ personality. She was angry, perpetually stressed out, competitive and aggressive. Anyone who knows me can see what’s coming. I am definitely not a type ‘A’. I am an easygoing, carefree, I’ll-do-it-later kind of guy. We fought daily. She had tried in vain for two years to change me, and I just wouldn’t budge. That year at Thanksgiving she pushed me down on the bed, jumped on top of me, and wrapped her hands around my neck. She said that I wasn’t listening to her. OK, that’s it. Finally I had taken enough abuse and moved out.

After a brief stay on Andy’s couch I got my own place. It was a nice little studio apartment on 4th Street, two doors down from O’Connell’s pub. There was a little cafe next door that was only open for breakfast and lunch. Across the street was a video rental place and a little coffee shop. I was 4 blocks from the beach. It was the first time I had lived by myself.

To say the studio was small would be an understatement. There was barely enough room for my bed and a desk in the main room. The kitchen was super small and very old. If I had to guess I’d say the building was at least 80 years old. There were built-ins everywhere–drawers and cabinets, a Murphy bed and the like. This place was old, but baby it had style. On the other end of the apartment was the closet. You had to walk through the closet to get to the bathroom, how cool is that? My shower consisted of an old bathtub with little legs on all four corners that stood apart from the floor. There was a large circular ring thing that went around the edges about 7 feet off the ground for the shower curtain. When you took a shower the plastic curtain invariably got stuck to your skin. It was great.

I had an old transistor radio about the size of your palm that I bought for $1 at the Salvation Army. I put that in the window sill. Sometimes I’d each my lunch on the steps out back and listen to the music through my window. In the back yard there was a little grassy area and a clothes line, where I used to hang my wetsuits in the sun to dry after a surf session. Sometimes I’d go out back and lay in the grass, staring up at the sky, soaking up the sun. I’d think about how great it was to be alive, and to be free. I could smell the salty sea breeze from just a few blocks away. During the Long Beach Grand Prix I could hear the roar of the engines and the squeal of their tires.

My neighbors were pretty cool. There was a fox downstairs that I tried in vain to hit on every chance I got. What was her name? The month after I moved in my buddy Dan moved in downstairs. Dan was one of the guys from my ship. We usually hung out in all the foreign countries we landed in. We used to walk around Japan and ask for ridiculous things from shopkeepers, knowing they couldn’t understand us. We once stopped in a tea shop and asked the owner if he could send his daughters out to dance on our table. He just smiled and laughed along with us. A few months after Dan moved in, a friend from my fraternity moved in next door. Eric was a nice enough guy. I don’t think he could appreciate my sense of humor though. We never really hung out.

Dan and I used to sit on our front door stoop late at night and talk. I’d make herbal tea and bring it downstairs for us both. We’d watch the bike people make their rounds, carefully inspecting every car to see if it was unlocked and fishing in garbage cans for who knows what. Dan didn’t drink alcohol, so we never partied. He was a recovering alcoholic that tried very hard not to lecture me about my drinking. We were good friends. I miss him.

The bar on the corner, O’Connell’s was your typical Irish dive bar. There was sawdust on the floors and old beat-up barstools. The booths were no better, the vinyl seats were full of cigarette holes and splashed with silver duct tape in a lame attempt to hold them together. There were 3 pool tables in surprisingly good condition. One game cost 50 cents. The best thing about the bar was the jukebox. It was filled with music from all the old crooners. Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, and Louis Prima. This was by far my favorite hangout in Long Beach. I’d go down there with my cordless phone (in those days nobody had cell phones) and sit at the bar like I was the King. I could have some cheap draft beers, listen to some good tunes, play some cheap pool–it was great.

The cafe next door was run by a pair of gay guys. Gays don’t bother me at all. They can tell right away that I’m not gay, and they leave me alone. I used to go over there on Sunday mornings for breakfast. Eventually they offered me a job waiting tables. I did that for about a month, but wasn’t making as much money as I was at Moose McGillycuddy’s over at the marina so I quit. I could look out my side window and look down into their back patio area. When I was working there my girlfriend at the time, Michele, the best girlfriend I ever had, would stand in the window and wave at me. I really loved that girl. I just couldn’t give her what she wanted. It hurt when she left.

I have great memories of Long Beach. I really do miss the place. If I get this railroad job the chances are pretty good I’ll be moving back. I can’t wait.