I find myself with some serious writer's block these last two weeks. It is something that I need to trudge through, because the reason for the block is major anxiety. But the writing is what relieves the anxiety, most of the time. When I write it, well, and truly end an essay feeling like I have said what I feel in a way that impacts the feeling, I shake off the grip of the anxiety. I have not been able to do that.
A caution about writing and publishing one's thoughts is that one makes public thoughts and feelings that others have not been privy to, especially the individual the thoughts and feelings are about. I know that my wasband could see a little of what was happening to me after I asked him to figure things out and he decided home was not the place he was comfortable doing that. I locked up. Tight. I showed very little emotion to him. Discussed what I was thinking and feeling infrequently. I wanted to give him the space to figure it out, and I wanted the figuring to conclude with him wanting to be with his family, and I thought that if I presented myself in a certain way, if I misrepresented how I was truly dealing with the situation, I would get what I wanted.
The period between August and January, when all angles of the future were being considered and the way forward was being examined, was like trying to move in the opposite direction on a moving walkway. Everything was tumultuous and uncertain, and it seemed that the situation and the interactions were so inconsistent, I lived daily waiting for the ground to resume moving underneath me. I was waiting on the Joy or the Finale, and I was completely powerless to determine my own fate, and the fate of our kids.
I quit sleeping. I am a notorious sleep enthusiast. I can do a good twelve hours on a weekend, and take a mid-afternoon nap. When my wasband moved out, I stopped sleeping. I had no motivation, regardless of level of exhaustion, to get into my bed and when I did, I was awake by 6:30 AM. I have Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, so one of the ways my anxiety manifests is through words, numbers or song lyrics getting stuck in my head. Like a skipping record. At 6:30, every morning, I was awake, repeating words or a line from a song I'd heard three days before. Pharmaceutical intervention was required to settle me down so I could either get up and begin a work/school day, or calm myself back into sleep on a weekend. I functioned on a full dose of tranquilizers.
It was during this 6:30 AM hour that my thoughts would organize into paragraphs, and I would take to a journal, make notes about things I would write about here when the time was right, or keep in my journal for when it would never be right. When it sits in you, it's poison. It has to be flushed out. I'm in therapy and I have great friends and a close family, but sitting in the quiet and writing it cleanses me. When the feelings that have me spinning have spun onto the white page or screen and evaporated from the whirlpool of my brain, I am lighter.
In February, when I succumbed to the end of my marriage, I said out loud to my friend and my dad that I could not go on this way, that I could not sit and wait for my future - for my kids' future - to be determined based on the decisions someone else was not making. In that afternoon, the ground stopped moving, the songs stopped coming, and I quit feeling like I was waiting on a line. I reclaimed whatever came next for myself, and took back the power to decide what was best for me and the boys. I started sleeping immediately. I stopped needing medicine immediately. I was heartbroken, but I was free.
Now, I'm trying to sell my home. The first home I owned, a distinction in itself, but also the home where I gave refuge to my children when they were afraid and grief-stricken. I just want to get it over with, to say goodbye to that house and the promises it held, and move on, standing straight and leading the way at the bow of the ship, with the rest of it attached to her. Following her.
What comes next is completely uncertain. I am again powerless, waiting on someone else to make decisions, to want my home enough to give me what I need for it. I have no plan for where the children and I will live. I am asked to go on blind faith that everything will work out as it should, and that when it is time to pick a place to go, the place for us will be waiting. But I do not sleep. I wake up at 5:30 or 6:00 AM with words and songs in my head. I have returned to the veil of existence where my emotional state is so bad, that it cannot be acknowledged, and I feel like there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. I graze through the kitchen and no longer sit and eat with my kids. I'm back on the meds. I repeat, I know that this too shall pass, and the better things will be there on the other side of it. I just do not know what condition I'll be in when I get there.
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This is my favorite Pema ever. It's from her book When Things Fall Apart. |
This is my attempt to shove the anxiety that is keeping me from writing out of the GD way. I am forcing the words that are not coming naturally, the words that swim through when I am cleaning, reading, painting a wall or repairing shrunken curtains. That's when creativity happens. When you are not looking for it. I want to live a life led by creativity and faith, but fear and worry have covered those with a dark blanket. I am going to look back at this experience and remember what a f**king loon I was during my separation, divorce, relocation, and career change. And when it's over, all over, I'm going to feel tough as nails. I did the unthinkable, the unplannable, and I was in charge the whole time, because I wrote the truth, even when I could not speak it.
On deck: a post about how much my feet get made fun of and the best times I've ever hurt myself.
Cold War Kids song "this too shall pass has been stuck in my head all day.
ReplyDeleteI am blown away by this piece. Brings up old feelings that I have had when I was going through my own particular hell. Though time seems to stand still during this ordeal, it will get better.
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