Category: Life

Not Enough

Amidst everything going on right now with current events life as many of us know it has changed drastically. The costs are immeasurable in some ways, but I am taking a shot at trying to put into words how this is feeling.

A paramount part of my mental health has depended on my routine. My world was upended nine months ago and at that time I had to deploy every known resource at my disposal to right the ship. I have had to develop new patterns and relationships that I depend on to be able to keep moving through the day without getting too lost in the gravity of my mind.

In one week those things have been obliterated.

Today I wake up trying to remember what day we are even on. It has become harder again to complete the basic tasks of living. I didn’t see it happening at first, but quickly enough I forgot lunches and showers and connection.

There are indicators for me, for my mental health and well being. Food, showers and sleep are the top three, with isolation coming in a very tight fourth.

First my energy is diverted to the critical: caring for my children. In a typical week this is on auto pilot. It isn’t easy, but it doesn’t typically drain the cup because I am able to fill it simultaneously throughout the day. In these past seven, only seven, days there are more holes in the cup and less resources to patch and fill it.

Next, I have to focus on my job. From home I get the kids settled with breakfast and turn on the computer. I read my emails and make a list of priorities for the day. Then before you know it I’ve spent three hours checking off boxes all while filling sippy cups and snack dishes, finding costumes, breaking up fights and soothing tantrums.

Eleven o’clock comes and I know it’s time to gather up lunch and get the kids settled to eat. I use this moment of time to throw in a load of laundry or sanitize the essentials for the 100th time. I sweep up the cereal or blueberry I just crushed under my toes and try to breathe. I put the dishes in the sink telling myself I’ll get to them later.

By noon I’m trying to get the kids down for a nap so I can get more work done or just a moment to breathe. I try not to fall asleep because I am trying not to fall into depression, but more often than not this week I’ve succumbed to exhaustion.

Some little voice will wake me, or the ring of the phone and it takes me a moment to get my bearings again. Now it’s time for a craft, a game or some other activity. A few times I’ve remembered to put on the music, turn it full blast and dance like a five year old while I can. This adds some to my cup even if just for a few moments.

Before I know it, it’s time for dinner and tubbies and stories and bed. I lay there with my son while my mind is racing and he puts his hand over my chest or neck and this reminds me to breathe. While I’d love nothing more than to succumb to sleep just then and there I am reminded that there is a war zone downstairs that needs to be tended to and there is no one else here to do it.

I swing my legs softly off the bed as not to wake my sleeping babies, and with another deep breath I open the door back to reality.

More laundry, those dishes, maybe something to eat, and I’m spent. I sit down, turn on the tv only not to have enough focus to watch it. I start to drift and somehow find the energy to get up to my room. It’s empty, its quiet and it’s dark. I lay there playing the day over and worrying that I am not living up to the ideals I have set for myself.

I am not enough, but I will have to be, because tomorrow will be another day and there is nobody else to do this.

0

Life Raft

When the main vessel capsizes our only remaining hope is the life raft we may have been lucky enough to find. Maybe we had to build it with our own two hands with anything and everything we could scavenge up for materials.

That dingy becomes our most prized posession. It’s the one thing keeping us from a cold, dark, agonizing death. We rest our head on it when our body’s collapse as the adrenaline leaves us. The rafts firmness gives us a sense of security in an otherwise morbid sea of fear.

But what happens when our lifeline springs a leak. First we fill with panic all over again. We may even become angry that this one thing that had allowed us to feel so safe and secure and whole, could fail us too. Next comes the thought that we are going to die out here, all alone in this frigid water.

If we are lucky, I mean really lucky, we find hope. We rummage around for anything we may have brought with us that could repair the damage. And with all we have left we replace the fear with determination to live.

Just as we ourselves are wholly imperfect and needed that raft to keep us afloat, it too has weaknesses. We just have to be willing to set aside the initial gut wrenching, immobilizing fear in order to put in the work needed to fix it.

Now that we’ve done this, now that our life line has been restored, we can rest assured that when the next leak comes we will survive that too. All the stronger for it.

1

Fog

I look forward to this day all week.

It is set aside as this special time when I can finally breathe. Feel moderately comfortable. Completely and fully exhale.

This time it was different.

There is something dark and heavy in the air. I could tell myself I’m just imagining it. I know how to do that. But I’ve done that for too long.

I’ve ignored this exact feeling many times over, and eventually it comes back to haunt me. It rears it’s nasty two pronged head another day while I’m kicking myself, wishing I’d have headed the warning.

This fog is coming from one of two places. The traditional answer is that it’s emanating from within me. And only me. That’s the script that I’ve been trained to read. It says I messed up or missed something. I can correct it and clear the air.

The other, less palpable answer, is that it isn’t just me. I won’t be able to fix it. I can’t flip a switch and vanquish this darkness. It’s not mine to eradicate. This is the narrative I despise. In this version of the story I have to rely on faith.

Faith that somehow, some way, something else can mend this brokenness.

Hands in the air, no driving with my knees. Just allowing something else to take the wheel.

0

Time

Time is reminiscent of water.

An ever rolling and flowing river.

Rapid, rough and risky on one hand, and yet slow, steady and smooth on the other.

We can’t easily hold it in our hands. Maybe for a short while, but inevitably it begins to gradually seep through our fingers, drop by drop, trickling down our wrists to our elbows until finally falling back to the earth. There is little-to-nothing we can do to stop it.

It can gently wash over our wounds and soften the edges of our pain, until we are ready to let go of it. This current simultaneously carries away the sting of the venom left behind by our predators. Much in the way we skip those impossibly polished stones from the shore with all our might to see how far away we can banish them.

Just like this fickle stream, time if spent wisely, can be the lifeblood of our souls. Conversely, if squandered for too long in dank darkness, can carry with it a soul sickness the likes of which nothing short of total surrender will scrub clean.

0

Intolerable

What do you allow?

Are there things that drive you crazy, make you blood boil or your skin crawl, but you stay silent?

I am finding that it’s more difficult for me to speak up than to tolerate things that make me uncomfortable.

In a way it seems that I’m used to being uncomfortable, one way or another; so why make waves?

If I’m going to be inconvenienced either way, at least I don’t have to hurt you, or worse, give you a reason to be mad at me.

God, my need to be liked and loved overshadows all of my other needs. I know it isn’t healthy and yet I allow you to blur my lines just to keep the peace.

To correct this would take hard conversations for me. That says something because I don’t often have a problem talking.

The thing is, I will lose something no matter which route I take. The tough part is putting my feelings above yours. It’s getting sick and tired of being uncomfortable.

Luckily for me, I’m growing. In this growth I’m learning to do hard things. Sometimes it just takes me a while to gather up the courage.

Unluckily for you, I’m no longer willing to be a doormat, security blanket, or worse, your mama…

0

I did not do endings.

I was “Ride or die”, to a fault.

I did not do fear.

I was “Never Let Go”, for fear of the unknown.

I did not do self-care.

I was “I’ll get to it later”, until there was no more time.

I did not do alone time.

I was “Please don’t leave me”, so that I didn’t have to be with myself.

There was a lot that I didn’t do.  There were so many fears in my heart, soul, and mind that I was almost paralyzed into standing still. Please don’t be fooled; the past tense here seems to imply I feel fearless today.  That is quite distant from the truth.

Today, I feel the fear. Frankly, I’m terrified but I acknowledge it.  I don’t run from it or try to hide from it anymore.  I don’t purposefully act in any way just to avoid feeling fear.

Here, on the eve of an ending, the precipice of fear and alone-time, I choose to take care of myself.

I choose to do different.

 

0

The Grey

Right or wrong; good or bad; up or down; black or white.

These things are easy for us to digest.

That area in-between is where we get lost.

I’m in the Grey right now. Trudging through.

I’ve got a line thrown down and tied to the dock, but I’m drifting.

Besides, I’m not the one griping the other end of the rope so, let’s hope it holds.

This blind faith, this completely insane trust, is how we are supposed to find our way through the Grey, to a better understanding of it maybe.

In this manner, we can learn how to live in the middle, steering clear of the extremes.

For me, I only became willing to tolerate the Grey when the pain and anguish of living in black-and-white became truly unbearable.

0

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up

I wonder what else I could have been?

We all do that right? Run all of those “what if’s” through our brains?

I have no idea what I could have been. I do know that whomever I am today is exactly who I am meant to be in this very moment. I don’t actually want to be or do more. Right now I am and have enough.

It took me a few months recently to get myself to believe that it is okay that I am happy with my life, even if and when others are not.

Tough doodoo really, because it’s my life now.

I built this life with a whole hell of a lot of blood, sweat and tears. I could never have woken up one day and decided it was no longer the life I wanted.

0

Shut Down

I shut this site down for a few weeks out of fear.

Fear of being out here, being seen.

That went against everything I stand for. Or, at least everything I’m trying to stand for. I fully believe that the only way to bring things into the light is to drag them there, sometimes kicking and screaming.

No, it’s not always easy to click the “publish” button after I have written something, but it is necessary. For me to release and for others to feel free to be 100% authentic in their own rite.

Yes, some of the things I write about are intense. And yes, I get scared of what people will think or say about me. Nevertheless, I’d rather have the truth out here, loud and proud, than some fake veil for you to see me through.

While this was hidden, I felt hidden. Today I am choosing to live my life in the light, and to do so I cannot hide.

Almost everything I have written about has reached someone, somewhere that needed to read it. They can feel seen just as I do, simply by knowing they are not alone.

For that I will risk the embarrassment, the open wounds and the brutal honesty.

I can’t tell you that I am with you, that I see you, if I won’t allow myself to be seen as well.

Raise Me

The first thing I had written in years, which I wrote in 2018, was a post about seeing you. Seeing the hurt in you and recognizing it. Understanding you and being with you through those moments when life is heavy.

Fast forward two years, and low-and-behold people are doing that for me today.

They see my racing mind at 5:30 am and raise me a phone call at 5:35. To me, not from me. Because they also seem to see that although I need support, I am not the best at asking for it.

They see my tension, my anxiety, and raise me a gentle hand, or even just their presence until I can breathe again. They remind me that I am not crazy, and what I feel is real and normal.

They see my path, and raise me the gift of experience, of having been here before. They don’t tell me what to do, they guide me until I reach my own conclusions.

They see my self-doubt and raise me their reassurance and reminders of what is factual, and what is feeling. They give me the ability to trust in them until I can remember to trust in myself.

They see me.

Every time I think they won’t, or think they’ve had enough, they see that too.

Maybe I’m not too much.

Maybe I am just enough.

They see me, the me that no one else sees, and they raise me still.

0

Website Powered by WordPress.com.

Up ↑