New things

"Anonymous said...

Hellooooooo! Where are you? Write something already....."

Yes, I am aware of my bloggery neglect. No, I am not sorry. I am inclined to selfishness these days, it has been a freight train of experience since I got home. I do want to tell you, I honestly do, but I also want to keep what may start to sound like whining to a minimum. I am not bored with myself yet, in fact the opposite, I am endlessly fascinated with my own discoveries and insides, but am very aware how quickly it might become dull to those around me. I am in some limbo as I am on waiting lists all over the place for various kinds of psychological evaluation and treatment. I want so badly to be talking to someone, and yet not just anyone. In the meantime I have been talking to anyone, and I just keep thinking "shut up shut up shut up" inside my head. Why can't I just be quiet? So I am trying. And partly I try by not notating each and every waking moment here.

I won't kid you, it has not been an easy time. I love my job. I am crazy for my job. My job is predictable and keeps me steady. Or, rather, is the one steady thing. I like being able to count on it, to have a reason to get up every day. A place to go. I like that I don't have to go there for too long. I am surprised at how little energy I have.

I am moving in with my good friend PJ for a couple of months. He has kindly offered a cozy room in his home to me, so I can look for the right place without panic, and can save a little money, and can have a nice, big tv for the playoffs. Not to mention a bbq, a patio, a freezer full of meat and a real bed up off of the floor. Grown up amenities to remind me I am growing up.

My emotional state is changeable, my sleep is erratic, and there have been walloping, painful, blinding migraines recently. I do what I can to stay out of the darker reaches of my brain, but it gets the better of me some days. I have had some very bad moments, and nearly checked myself back in to the hospital this week. I have been walking as much as I can, and have started jogging a little, which helps. I also have been going to AA meetings. I am pretty sure they are not exactly the right place for me, but in the interim while I have no therapy to attend, they are somewhere comforting where I can feel safe when I don't feel safe inside myself. Which I don't sometimes. I get very scared, and can feel extremely lonely, even in a crowd full of my friends. AA meetings remind me to take care of myself, to do the right things in my life, and to pray. Praying makes me breathe and remember to be grateful, which I am, mostly just to be alive. Because I almost wasn't this winter, and that's the truth.

I have fallen a couple of times, strayed from what are my new, healthy habits, since coming back to the city. It has been a challenge to be out of the cozy nest of watchful family, and to be responsible for my own welfare. Thank God for my job. And my good good friends who are keeping their eyes on me, even though they have their own lives and worries to attend to.

I can tell you this, I do not want to go back to where I was in the winter, but some days I am very frightened that I am headed that way. So I have to pay close, vigilant attention at all times to make sure I am taking care. I have proven to myself that I can easily slip into old habits, and that only constant deep breaths and taking it one day, one hour, one minute at a time is the only way through this patch. I do get to worrying sometimes, I am afraid that this battle will always feel difficult, that I will always be tired, that I will never feel right again, but somewhere in me I have a steady voice, reminding me that if I do the work, and humbly walk forward, I will live lightly again. I hope, I pray, I eat, I work, I laugh, I cry, (I laugh and cry a lot), and I practice patience and kindness with myself.

All of this has affected my relationships with so many people in so many ways. Friendships are changing, as I am changing, and I am so grateful to be so loved, but know I can not spread my attention as thin and wide as I have in the past. I am so limited in what I can do in a day, and I choose very carefully, always putting myself first. I look forward to the time when I do not have to concentrate so hard to take care, when it is the new neural truth, when the pathways have been retrained. I also look very much forward to getting back on stage, but it is still a ways off, even though people have very sweetly been asking for me. It is nice to be wanted, and nicer still to do it all at my own pace.

Every day is a little adventure, and a total gift, and a leap into the unknown. Some days I fall, some days I run, some days I find peace, some days there is so much noise.

And that is what there is.

xo
r.