Way past my bedtime

It's 1:38am and I'm awake and I don't want to be, but a neighbor (if you want to call him that - I can think of all sorts of other things to call him) decided that 1:00am was a good time to blast everyone in the neighborhood with supersonic Latin dance music screeching from his souped-up jeep, which apparently (according to another neighbor) he gets to take home from his job at a used car lot. It's not the first mega-stereo vehicle he's brought home, letting all of us know by blasting loud music. ( And he's not the only one - just the one closest to me.) Why? Why? Tonight's idiocy brought back all the bad memories from when I lived in Tampa Heights and Southeast Seminole Heights where stadium-level rap music plundered my neighborhoods, rattling my windows and vibrating my floors and walls, day and night, on a continual basis. I came out of those places with PTSD - at least it feels like it. I've never been formally diagnosed but now I'm so rattled I can't sleep, I can't relax, my ears are ringing, I have a headache, and I just want to get drunk so I can leave this earth for a little while. 

I have to believe there are places where a person can live in peace and quiet. Maine was like that when I visited there in 2019. Not once did I hear blasting rap or hip hop or Latin dance music. Not once, not in Portland, not in the park my sister and I went to, not in the small towns we wandered around in, not on the long winding roads through forests, not in the place we stayed at in Bethel, not in touristy Boothbay Harbor, not anywhere. (Too bad there's so much snow in the winter. I'm not a fan of snow; it looks pretty in photos and in movies, and that's where it should stay.) Or maybe Oregon. Maybe Oregon is the place or maybe the west coast of British Columbia or maybe Black Mountain, North Carolina or maybe my own island that I can buy when I win the Lotto (a girl can dream). 

This isn't what I was going to talk about, but talking via typing has helped with my soul-tearing early morning. My heart is no longer beating hard, my breathing is calmer, and my headache is fading. Of course, a little bit of rum (okay, a whole lot of rum) always helps with anxiety, anger, and sadness. And, for Pete's sake, it's almost Christmas day and the end of 2020. Hopefully 2021 will be better. I plan on making it better, but you know how that goes: "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." You got that right, Woody Allen. But, hey, maybe I'll just laugh along with God.