It’s been one of those days.
One of those days when something goes wrong, and suddenly everything else goes wrong too — because children pick up on moods, because the ability to cope has been drained and then some, because half-broken beds can stand up to daily use but not fuck-I’m-having-a-shit-day attacks.
The most proximal reason for the crap covering this day: I got kicked out of physical therapy for, essentially, hurting too much. For being too broken. After being referred to PT in the first place for plateauing with chiropractic and massage.
The universe does not seem a friendly place when one feels hopeless and helpless and pissed off and in pain.
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There are things going on about which I am not blogging. And it appears that my brain has decided that because I won’t blog about them, I shan’t blog at all, for my words have vanished1.
I sit here, head throbbing (post-crying-jag dehydration headache? oncoming migraine? too much crappy-day-quitting-the-world-knitting-and-movie-watching? only time will tell), words gone, ideas slipping between my fingers, and I am torn as always between staying in the room and staying in the moment, between going all-out and going with the flow. Which means I do neither, and fit and start and flit… and stop.
I’m praying that this is my crazy brain speaking, but I feel like this — this start-and-stop, this can’t-pick-a-path — has been my whole life. At least since adolescence.
(12 was when I injured my back.
12 was when I started writing.
Let’s call that a coincidence.)
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A scene:
I’m lying in bed, eyes red, tear tracks drying. The Boychick is trying to drag his dad away to “watch something”2 with him. His dad is trying to put him off. I, feeling better but as though a cozy brain-dead snuggle would be about my speed, ask gently “What would you like to watch?”, to which my angel child responds with a shout “Stop talking to me like that!”
I lose it.
Cue next crying jag.
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A belief:
Any improvement I try to enact, any move toward health and the life I want which I try to make, is countered. Any thought of how to help leads to twenty thoughts of what it would require and what it would entail that makes it impossible. My life is an oroborus, a perpetual catch-22, two steps forward and two steps back, and if I’m to wind up in the same place anyway, why am I trying to travel at all? All this shaking about is giving me a headache.
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An assertion:
I am not by nature a pessimist3. I call myself a cynical optimist: the world sucks, but it’s gotta get better eventually. And I can see, if I take the long view, that I have made so many steps forward in these years, in my mental health, in my physical health, in the life I live. My family has grown; I have a child.
But I’m back again doing the same old shit, in my body, in my habits, in my mind. Polished by the years, worn down by dint of my hard effort, but the problems I’m dealing with now are the same ones from last year, from five years ago — some of ‘em from fifteen years ago, and more. It’d be taunting Murphy more than I care to to ask for new crap to deal with, but I gotta say, I’m more than a bit tired of facing the same dance partners again, when I thought I’d spun away from them for good — when I know I’ve new ones to deal with now as well.
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So today I quit. I quit cranky children and falling apart beds and bulging discs and impossible decisions and insufficient funds and fucked up neurology. I quit deadlines and judgments and standards I can’t live up to and never ending chores and never unpacked boxes. I quit failure and pain and mean people and getting ignored. I quit. I’m done.
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It doesn’t go away, of course (alas), just like your job doesn’t disappear when you quit, it’s just not your job any more. Today I declared — loud enough for neighbours three houses over to have heard, I’m sure — that even though I couldn’t make the world stop, I could make it not my job, and I was more than ready to. (There was rather more swearing at the time, and fewer syllables.)
Everything that sucked today will still be true tomorrow. But that’s tomorrow. And today, tomorrow isn’t my job.
- That last non-guest post? Had been almost completely written a month ago. There is that advantage to having an embarrassingly long draft queue: there’s bound to be something to dust off and put up when all else has dried up and blown away. ↩
- Which is to say, watch a video on the computer. ↩
- Except when I am. ↩
Arwyn
In my bathroom hangs a plaque with a picture of a yin yang and the word BALANCE. I can never get it to hang straight. This probably says something deep and meaningful about my life.
Oh, Arwyn. I wish I could offer more than just a big, snuggly internet hug to you. I may not have been in exactly the same circumstances but I think I can, at least on some level, relate to a lot of what you’ve said and it sucks. I’m sorry.
Quitting the world sounds like good self care. I’ve certainly been there.
What you wrote is powerful and true for so many of us. If you can continue to allow yourself to write the unvarnished truth, it will move mountains. If it is too much, it is too much. But this dee[ dark is not forever and we will still be here when you are ready to write again.
Hang in there,I hope today is better! And I have a feeling that you are different than 15 years ago because even though you may be up to the same old shit, I doubt you would have called yourself out on it back then. That’s progress!
Keep plugging away one day at a time. The past is gone, the future unknowable. You are not a failure. You are a good writer, and you are not alone. Here is my best internet {({({({(HUG)})})})} and a promise of a the longest one you’ll take in person very soon.
Are you not writing about it b/c you don’t have the right platform? Because you don’t think people will care? Because you think it won’t do any good? I’m sure that your friends could counter any argument you could make – so maybe if you write it, it will start the wheels turning for how to move past the issues, find a more effective way to deal, *something* – so you can start feeling better!
Long distance hugs to you.
Boy, can I relate! You are a powerful writer to be able to convey this so well. Big squishy i-Hugs until I can give you real ones!
Oh sweetie. I know how you feel, or at least I have an inkling. Yes, quit for a time. Let the mud settle. Let things go on without you for awhile–the world will cope, even boychick. Dump all those “got to”s, “but I need to. . .”s, “I should. . .”s. Maybe do a little nothing, or do something totally out of your routine that feels just a bit wickedly irresponsible. We all love you, and we’ll all still be here when you get back from your virtual vacation from the world.
*hugs*
Good for you!
The world can be a damn pushy and demanding place and sometimes we all need to just tell it where to go with all it’s “shoulds” and “supposed tos”. I can’t say I know exactly what you’re feeling or going through because we all experience life so differently but I know that when I hit a depressive cycle sometimes the best thing I can do is just embrace it; to give myself permission to feel how I feel and do my best not to feel bad about all the things I’m not able to do.
So go ahead, do what you need to do, let yourself be exactly as you need to be. Just remember to treat yourself with all the loving, kindness and gentleness you deserve