Anxiety in A minor

It’s 1:42 am

And I’m up

Asking Google

About the nature of reality

They say the Universe is 13.8 billion years old

And 93 Billion light years wide

I look up a light year

Which they say is 6 trillion miles long

But I don’t understand this

I have no context for numbers this big

Earth is 6 billion years old

But humans have only had hands for 2.6 million years

And that seems like a relatively short amount of time

I think

Comparatively

But also that’s an unfathomable amount of time

To spend evolving all this DNA

Just so I can have hands

And no good ideas for what to do with them

Speaking of DNA

There are 204 billion atoms in the human genome

But I don’t understand DNA

Or atoms

The internet says there’s

7 billion billion billion

Atoms in the human body

And 100 billion neurons

Forming 100 trillion neural connections

In the human mind

It’s 2:05 am

I scratch my head because I can’t grasp these numbers

But I’m worried I haven’t made enough neural connections

To make it through the Alzheimer’s stage in life

It runs in my family

Also Dementia

And Parkinson’s

But I don’t understand these things either

Maybe they’re in my DNA

They say DNA is only 3 meters long

6 if you stretch it out

I can picture that, I think

But I probably imagine it

Out of proportion

It’s 2:41 am

And I’m not sure what I should be doing

I drink some hot water from the electric kettle

And some tequila Pancho gave me for Christmas

I read that most of the atoms in your body are hydrogen

2/3 they say

And that hydrogen has an unstable relationship to its electrons

Because it only has 1

And the valence shell likes to be full

Which takes 2

So the atom drops the electron

Or picks 1 up

Changing its charge

To either positive or negative

Making the atom an ion

And most bodily fluids are made of ions

Because Hydrogen is so fickle

Or flirty

Or unstable, I guess

It’s why we have the pH scale

Negative ions means it’s acidic

It’s 3:03 am and I drink some more tequila

It’s probably full of negative ions

Because it’s acidic

Or maybe I don’t understand ions

But it hurts my teeth either way

I switch back to the Universe

I capitalize “Universe” now because I don’t believe in God

But that seems silly because wouldn’t that be idolizing something else

I shake my head and agree with myself

Then I read that as much as 90 percent of the Universe

Is made of dark matter

And dark energy

But it doesn’t react to electromagnetic radiation

Which means it doesn’t react to light

So no one has ever seen it

And it might not even exist

And I think about the Universe being 90 percent

Of something that no one has ever seen

And my body is made out of how many billions

And billions and billions

Of atoms

Mostly Hydrogen

That I’ve never seen

And now its 3:19 am

And I’m panicking

Because the infinitesimally small

And the infinitely large

Are crashing in my head

And I can’t keep track of which one

I’m thinking about

And it makes my heart race

And I picture red blood vessels

Racing through my tubes

Made of tiny little atoms

Bodily fluids so they’re probably ions

And then I feel the space outside of me

The 93 billion light years

Full of dark matter

And how far that is

Through the wall

Through every wall

And the floor

And the ceiling

Every direction

And then I remember a thing I read

About Dissociative Identity Disorder

And how each personality has its own set of physiological eccentricities

Different allergies

Different eyeglass prescriptions

Different dominant handedness

And I think about my hands

Which I’m sitting on

Because I’m not sure what to do with them

After so many years of evolution

Which makes me feel guilty

So I sip the tequila

With the negative ions

And hope I’m not just a personality

And wonder

How the body changes eyesight

And how precarious

And misunderstood

And insecure reality is

And now its 3:25

And I’m rubbing my feet together

And clenching my teeth

And avoiding my problems

Because I have no money

And I wonder if all this stuff is not for me

Because I panic

But as a human I have a curiosity

Which leads me to ask questions

But we don’t have time for the Unknown

Space exploration is for rich people

Billionaires

They call it a Mars colony for a reason

We make coffee

And shake martinis

And now it’s 3:51 am

And I can’t sleep

And I’m going to die

And I’ll never know

What I could be doing

With these hands