I used to lie awake at night and ask "Where have I gone wrong?", and then the next night, too, and the night after that. Some nights I had so many anxities, my anxities had anxities. So I developed a new philosophy: I only dreaded one day at a time.
I think I was even afraid to be happy, because whenever I got too happy, something bad always happened. In the old days, you could join the Foreign Legion to run away from yourself; I did the next-best thing and went on overseas jobs which kept me so busy they gave me a good night's sleep as I was too tired to worry about the rest of the world. And if I was still worried about the world coming to an end, I could console myself with the thought that it was already tomorrow in Australia.
Of course, I could have bought one of those nice white-noise machines to give me a good night's sleep; instead I got married and discovered ABC Radio National which, between the two of them, make so much white noise that I now lie awake at night and think "I don't have a single thing to worry about" --- and that really, really, REALLY worries me!
