Cactus Tree

"You know, I think if I were so inclined, I would easily be a junkie," I tell my friend, Kit, over dinner.

"Me too!"  His eyes widen in agreement and I know he understands.  We're both one kind of addict anyway.  Worriers, chewing obsessively over the same thought night and day.  Kit's learned to compartmentalise but I'm not as intelligent.  

I have to make do and since I can't be a user, I find other manias to build my life around.  Unfortunately, unlike drugs, they don't always come in steady or reliable supply.  Nothing gold can stay, I found myself thinking on my twenty-minute walk to work today, as the smell of newly-laid tar and drying cement steamed up around me, and I felt an indelible sadness.  

After my ex well and truly taught me how not to cling to people, I started to cling to things thinking that they couldn't possibly ever mean as much.  Except, it turns out, they do.  And things, too, change and end and maybe I'm just too worn out for one more set of goodbyes.   

In recent weeks, I'd been up late at night playing a game in which one tries to memorise all the countries in the world.  Then I moved on to memorising all their capitals.  Each round, after the timer runs out, I find myself reaching to restart it, to get one more hit of soothing routine.  During the day, I carry the names in my mouth and head to stave off withdrawal: Honiara, Belmopan, Tegucigalpa, Chisinau.  I repeat mnemonics and create mental imagery and tell my friends and cram my attention with lists and lists of places because one who feels so full couldn't possibly also feel hollow.  

I'll be done with it eventually.  But you know what they say.  Once an addict, always an addict.

And lying in bed in the dark, I recite the names of capitals over and over again, just as if they were prayers.