About That Blog Title...

Okay, I've heard from a few people over the last few days, and I'd like to say it's official, I'm not sane.
That said, the title of this blog stays the same. I'm going to make a different blog for any thoughts I happen to come up with during the trip.
The problem with my not being sane is, that's the reason I need to go on this trip.
Is it sane to work a job that you don't particularly enjoy while barely eking out a living?
Is it sane to live a life where you sit in front of a computer 16 or more hours a day, less than half working?
Is it sane to have no hope that the situation will ever improve?
Is it sane to fall behind on rent and never recover enough to prevent eviction?
Well welcome to my world. I'm not sane.
I suppose there are other ways to get my sanity back, but I've been in too many jobs lately where I've slipped into complacency and just not bothered to change things because it would make me too uncomfortable. Because it would inconvenience me.
Well consider this the ultimate wake up call for my brain and body.
I also suppose I could talk to a psychiatrist about my issues...
But I really don't like that idea. And really, what is he going to tell me that many of you already haven't? Get a better job; Do something with your life; Give up the idea of being a writer...etc.
The thing is, I've got so many ideas running around my head that I often can't sleep, like right now. I have ideas for stories, ideas for inventions, ideas on what the perfect life would be like.
And then there's the voices.
Now before you go all 'He's schizo' on me, let me explain what I mean by voices.
I do not mean there are voices in my head that tell me what to do. Quite the opposite.
These voices started, maybe 6 years ago, with my mother's voice. My mother died in 2004, and the day she died I heard her distinctly calling my name. I was in Blacksburg Virginia at the time, and she was in Tucson. I didn't find out about her death until 4 days later. After all that, I still heard her from time to time, always calling my name. It didn't happen often, it didn't happen regularly. I know that was a representation of my grief. Or was it?
I knew she was dying, but I didn't know until well after the fact that she was indeed dead. Why would I hear her voice when I didn't know she was dead? I hadn't heard it before then.
Well, after six months I stopped hearing her. But I found that I did hear others. The voices were not clear. They were not talking to me. It sounded like one person having a conversation with an unheard second person.
I only hear them when it's absolutely quiet, usually when I'm in bed trying to go to sleep, just as I'm about to drop off. It has the tendency to wake me up, so I now play music in the background, and I don't hear anything.
Yes, I'm still hearing them.
If I'm schizo, it's a very mild case. I'm not violent. But I don't think that's it. I think my mother was trying to communicate something with me, and maybe that opened some part of my brain that I never used before.
A great deal of my writing has to do with the paranormal. Yet I've never seen or even felt a ghost. I don't claim to read minds, not consciously, but maybe my subconscious can.
I'm as skeptical as the next sane person about things like this. (I may not be able to manage money very well, but I do think logically most of the time.) I've often wondered why people who claim to be psychic or who found Bigfoot or some other mythical creature don't provide physical proof of it. Well, as far as my condition goes, how do I prove that what's happening to me is real? Is there some machinery that can detect psychic activity? Not that I've heard of.
Anyway, the point is I admit that I'm perhaps not as sane as advertised, at least not right now.
The point of going to the Appalachian Trail and spending 3 or more months living in the wild is a way to get out of my comfort zone and a) lose weight; b) get some time alone to think about my script and other books, away from distractions like whether or not I'll be able to make rent AND pay the high electric bill AND the phone bill AND other bills AND still eat.
I have the bare minimum it will take to survive out there, and will have money enough to pay for some food along the way. If after three months passes I'm satisfied that my goals have been achieved, then I'll come back to the real world and see what either I can offer it, or it can offer me.
Sane or not.