Category: Journal

115 // Paradox of My Life

You ever have one of those days where outwardly the world appears calm, everyone you love is collected, and all of your problems are neatly under control, and yet beneath it all you sense a black and simmering chaos that you cannot reach? On days like these all you can do is watch and wait for that inevitable eruption of darkness, and it is this watching and waiting, not the bubbling chaos itself, that fills you with a vague dread for which there is no cure.

Or perhaps there is? I tried coffee and yard work today, then watching a stupid show and taking a short nap, and suddenly I can see the sun and tomorrow doesn’t seem so dreadful. I feel better, but I also don’t. I suppose it’s another paradox of life, or maybe only of my life as it is right now.

There is something about that dreadful and bubbling chaos that feels almost good.

The fragility of the world is never far from my thoughts lately and “ends”—my end, the many ways life as I know it could end, the end of the humanity, the end of the world, the cold and distant end of the universe—are weighing on my heart but, strangely, I have never felt so alive either.

It’s been so long since I’ve been walking mindlessly through life from work to home to bed to work to home and bed again and again and again, but I’m not mindless anymore. I’m awake. I’m aware. A sudden truth has come to the forefront of my mind and it won’t be shoved back again so easily. I’m hurting more, but I’m living more and I cannot make sense of it except that to avoid any one part of life is to neutralize it all to endless grey monotony.

You are alive, but it is only the barest kind of life. You are content, but you are not happy. You are safe, but all sense of self and meaning have been removed. You will have your years, but you will not grow. This, right now, is a lesson.

114 // I’m Not Good at It

This is my first morning in a long time getting up with the sun, making a cup of hot coffee, and sitting alone in a space that makes me feel free and motivated. It’s only the end of the kitchen table, but it’s quiet, it’s clean, and it’s mine for now.

I’m trying this writing thing. I’m not good at it. I don’t mean the words; I mean the focus it takes. I mean the discipline. Even this early, with nothing going on and nothing to force me away from myself, I can still find so much distraction and procrastination. Even this post is a kind of avoidance, though I’m calling it a warm up.

I have the draft open though, and I have my body where it needs to be. I have a timer at the ready and a notepad to write down all the things my mind wants to do instead so that it might not feel neglected, defensive, or demanding. I will get to the to-do list, the pets and plants, the news, Twitter and TV in time, but not right now.

Right now, I need simply to cleanse.

113 // A New Battle to Fight

It’s a strange morning. I’m working from a different location and the change in schedule is sending my anxiety levels sky high. I’m proud of the work I’ve done and the coping skills I’ve learned to calm and care for myself. I validate my thoughts and fears. I give myself space to feel. I can sit with the feeling without being overwhelmed. I can leap into action to put in place plans to ease my mind.

It didn’t used to be this easy. It still isn’t but I can see now that it gets easier every day. Maybe this is what they mean when they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Each fear, each failure, leads to a new insight, and each insight leads to a new strategy, a new way to win against yourself. I just wish there wasn’t always a new battle to fight.

I read a great post over on Brevity this morning, and it’s got me feeling inspired to write again. It’s started with these little journal entries and some reviews and personal essay drafts I’ve begun in the last few weeks. I have a list of posts on Are.na where I can collect quotes and webpages. I have everything started, but that’s all I’ve got, a start.

But I’d like to try the actual writing part again. I’d like to simply schedule time to sit down for an hour a day (three or four over the weekend) and plug away at them one post after another. No talking, no cleaning, no social media, nothing but writing. I have the time, all I need is the discipline.

And like the post said, “I’m slow and it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay. I can do this.” There are no other goals or expectations to meet. There is no one I have to be better than. There is no one to impress. The goal is only to write until the time is up, no matter the subject or the pace or the skill level I’m at.

112 // To Be Whole

Time heals. That’s a truth. Time also hurts, and that’s a truth too. I welcome both realities. Sometimes I reject both too.

Seeing others struggle now has me looking back on my life to a time I don’t often return to. I’m ashamed, I realize, of my mental health struggles and I feel compelled to hide those old pains and wounds. I was so irrational, so weak, so wrong about so many things. So I buried it all. Why burden myself or others with what’s long past? Why reveal so much vulnerability and failure? Who does it help, if it helps at all?

The one profound good I fear is missing from my life is living in Truth. Omission is a form of dishonesty, and dishonesty is an insidious kind of infection. It pretends to be a cure and all the while it goes on killing. We hurt because we hide.

But it’s a different time now, not my time naturally but a time I can claim if I can muster the courage and the want. I deserve what we all deserve, to be whole.

111 // I Want to Change Too

I’ve attempted to return to some semblance of normalcy today, but no matter how hard I tried to put on the same old face and take the same old steps through my life, nothing felt anything near normal, but it turns out, I’m feeling exactly what I need to feel right now and like all things there is a lesson to glean.

The way I see it from here, normalcy is what lead to complacency, and complacency was the contributing factor that lead to disaster. I don’t think I ever want to be that comfortable again. I don’t want to think this or that can’t happen, this or that is completely safe, or that this or that is all taken care of.

There must be more diligence. There must be more thoughtfulness and courage to tackle what might be scary or uncomfortable. Time has to be made for hard conversations, deep understanding, radical love, and drastic measures. Time has to be made to for feeling, giving, guiding, and receiving.

I’ve been thinking a lot about bravery lately and all the ways it can manifest from person to person. There is so much I am afraid of, but there are worse outcomes than even I can imagine. Seeing what others have to endure and overcome and seeing the courage it takes to do so fills me with both shame and determination myself.

Since my birthday passed, I’ve been thinking a lot about my age too and how slowly my time is becoming a “different time”. I compare my life, interests, pursuits, and values to the changing world around me and more and more the two sides don’t add up. I feel left behind and I know deep down it was because I grew up in a “different time”, a time I realize now failed me miserably.

But I want to change too, and I think it isn’t as hard as people make it out to be. I don’t want to be this time’s failure as others were to me in mine.

110 // A Terrifying Prospect

Things can always get worse and often do. They can get better too and do just as often. So, never get too comfortable, not with the good nor the bad. Life is always changing, and it’s never according to plan or even the wildest of imaginations.

It’s a terrifying prospect how much you can miss about yourself and others and how fragile health and happiness can be. It’s terrifying how much you can lose in an instant. The abyss is never very far and the wrong step in any direction can send you and your loved one’s plunging.

I am finally beginning to grasp the worth of a daily gratitude practice. The bad always feels so much more profound than the good, and in those bad times you need not just love and support, but the memory of who you were when you knew joy, awe, and hope. Remember: you can just as easily find yourself there again, too.

It would be easier to be an island unto myself, unbeholden to the expectations and judgements, needs and wants of others, but where would I find meaning then? I see now it’s through the suffering of others, and our own suffering in turn, and their suffering for us too that makes the meaning.

We find ourselves in that darkness. We find others there too, and, with time, we can heal and grow into a new light, together.

104 // Overstuffed and Dull

It’s the day after my birthday and like Sylvia Plath after Christmas, I am overstuffed and dull. Not just physically, but emotionally and socially as well. I’ve had too much food, been given too many things, and shown too much attention in one day to process. It may be weeks before I recover myself fully.

Unlike Plath and many Christmases I’ve suffered through, I am far from disappointed. For me, birthdays are nearly always brimming with pure pleasure. I manage to cram so many of my favorite people and things into one day that my senses and soul become overwhelmed in the best possible ways.

I’ve been loved enough for another year and I’ll spend the next analyzing, agonizing, dreading, and then wishing again to be, for just 24 short hours, the center of my circle’s little universe.

I’m grateful for them all: my coworkers, my friends, my family. The celebrations aren’t yet over but the day is and no matter what other wishes or gifts I’m given the excitement of real and tangible growth is gone. A threshold has been crossed and the past year is fully in the past now, unreachable. I’m starting around the sun anew and I’m as young as I’ll ever be again.

I suppose every day is a birthday in that way. Perhaps spending a whole year celebrating the self every day isn’t such an unreasonable notion at all.

084 // Back to Myself

I’ve spent a long time away from myself now. Over a month at least. I’ve been resting and reading, working and cleaning, and not much more. I’m too drained, too dejected, and, sometimes, too distressed or disquieted for anything else.

But I have missed myself these past few weeks. I’ve missed spending time on those little things that calm me, awaken me, excite me. I have missed my early mornings, my solitude, my little hobbies and particulars.

The problem has been deep and persistent guilt building inside me. There are so many people around me taking the time to be patient, to be supportive, to be kind and helpful, which is all very good and nice, except now there are all these little debts I owe piling up everywhere all the time.

Now any scrap of motivation or focus I have has to be spent returning the favor. All I have time for now is work, or my house, or my loved ones. There’s nothing left that belongs to me anymore.

And today isn’t much different, except that I had a little too much coffee and found myself with just one spare minute I didn’t quite know what to do with. So, I thought, why not stop by this old place, clear some cobwebs, and sit for a minute with that old feeling of possibility?

And oh, how I have missed it too! I’m suddenly reminded of how many ideas I have yet to explore and how many little interesting and thought-provoking things I had hoped to share. I’m suddenly reminded that I had a purpose for this place and a goal for this year. I’m suddenly filled with a small—very small—spark of determination.

Now? Who knows. I found one minute today, maybe I can find two tomorrow? Maybe I can get comfortable carving out a little time and a little space—this space—to call my own. Maybe I can begin to believe I deserve something of my own at all.

Maybe I can find my way back to myself again.

050 // It Still Feels Good

I started the day feeling sluggish and stupid despite getting my third night in a row of uninterrupted sleep—a feat unheard of in my personal “new normal”.

Since that slow start, things have sped up quickly and the sluggish and stupid feeling gave way to a feeling of optimism that’s been building steadily since my first sips of coffee. I want to blame the caffeine, but I know there’s more to the change in mood.

Perhaps it’s because the end of the week I’ve been waiting so anxiously for has finally arrived. I hate to take the rest work week for granted like this, but time has been dragging so and I have been feeling such boredom and restlessness at work it’s driving me crazy! I’m in desperate need of real time to myself for a while.

I have started writing a few things in the gaps of time between emails, tasks, requests, and meeting. Nothing that amounts to much more than notes and outlines, but it’s a step forward from ideas and dreams, so I’ll take it.

This weekend I’d like to carve out time to do a lot more. I don’t want to lose what momentum I’ve gained. I want to use this new energy and excitement to polish and publish old drafts I’ve struggled to clarify and conclude.

It’s going to be tiresome and awkward path forward, but that doesn’t matter. It still feels good to be back in the chair, thinking and typing away about the little things that matter to me.

049 // Save Your Strength

I’ve had two nights in a row of uninterrupted sleep, a rare occurrence and exciting development. This might be the first sign of real healing.

I have an appointment with my doctor later this morning, and I’m hoping the good news on my end will mean good news on her end too. I’m hoping that we’ve finally hit on the right combination of medications, diet changes, and stress management techniques to calm my immune system and stop the inflammation.

Part of me is reluctant to hope for too much. I don’t want to start dreaming of a better tomorrow. Hell, I don’t even want to live like I have a better today! Not because I think I’ll jinx myself or anything like that. It’s just that whenever I think I’m better, I start pushing myself too hard.

I think I can be the person I used to be and do all the things I used to do, but the path from sick to better, to well, to healed is gradual and winding, often looping or doubling back in strange and unpredictable ways. A favorable stretch or promising directional change may only be temporary. The key and the hardest lesson: slow down and save your strength because you never know what perils lurk around the next bend.

A little better is only that, a little, and that is the most I can give myself or anyone else right now: a little.