Lisa Marie Blair

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.

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.

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.

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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.

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.

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.