coming up for air
25.9.08I've always believed in signs, read into the little and big patterns in the threadwork of everyday life like they were metaphors to help me decipher the larger meaning of things. I used to do it constantly; play it like it were a game.
While the why and how of it were all important until a few weeks ago because the blame and wound were both fresh, it hardly matters now. I went from feeling like the luckiest girl in the world, to feeling absolutely lost and wretched. I was lost about myself, my life, the course it was suddenly taking. I haven't been that low in a long while and it bought back some horrible ghosts from the past. I realized what someone had told me once was so true, I felt my joys and sorrows, my peaks and troughs fully. When I was happy, I was truly happy and when I was sad, well, God help me.
This time around, when things went pear shaped, I couldn't even hold myself from tripping over. I just plain fell flat. I cannot, do not, want to put into words the strange thoughts that traipsed through my mind the last few months, because that would just be too ugly. One thing after another kept pulling me down, lower lower lower. I really haven't been myself these last few months. Haven't felt one bit like me. Infact, I realized at some point when I was thinking half-sanely, without heaping blame, anger, dirt on myself, that I'd forgotten what made me me. This realization only pulled me deeper down. I can't believe the things I was thinking, all the complaining I did, all the shoulders I sought. I couldn't even console myself. At one point, I wasn't able to recognize who I was anymore. I just couldn't figure out why it hurt so badly, what were these aches about, why did this stuff matter so much? Couldn't I just dust myself off and walk along once again, the way I knew I had done so many times before?
I tried things to make me feel better, but this load, it was just too heavy. I felt despicable because I could feel the people around me sour on my bitterness, tell me, "Pull yourself together woman, there's more to life than this." I just kept drowning in it all though. To each his own. Well, almost.
But it's true. There is a time for everything. And now, as the seasons slowly turn in the air and in the earth, I'm coming around. Finally. Nothing "happened". Time is just taking its course and bringing me to a point where I can safely look behind me and say, "Well, that's that." I'm not quite there yet, but I'm out of the dark. I'm not drowning anymore. It's been overwhelming me for so long now, this terribly ugly feeling I've had sitting like a rock inside of me, and now, it isn't there any more. To me, the feeling inside me today, it feels a little like magic, wisdom and simplicity braided together.
I know what I need now. And I know I'll find it, I know I'm on my way already. Just to realize that for all this time I've sought my worth in my relationships with people and not inside myself, that I've been looking to the people I love to make sense of my troubles and confusions for me, to support me in my small and large crises because I didn't trust myself to do it alone, that I built that safety net so carefully from the relationships I built with people, but I paid no attention to first building a relationship with me- do you know how sweet these understandings are?
I am figuring things out. Piecing things together, my own knowledge of me.
I can't tell you how good it feels suddenly to have that rock of feeling lift away, to not feel like I'm drowning any more and waiting, in need of rescue. Because rescue and consolation came, and it came from just the right place- from me.
I re-started this blog in an attempt to make myself do one of the things I like doing best, that keep me centred, writing. And I just haven't been able to put my thoughts out of myself, mould them into words and sentences. They've sputtered and coughed and made little half sentences on the screen. It felt like there was a plug jammed somewhere that wouldn't let the words out of me. But I knew the moment I felt myself again, the words would flow.
I'm writing this on the blog tonight and the words are swimming out of me. Smooth and unhindered like before. I don't care if this makes no sense to people, I don't care if it sounds like melodrama, I don't care because it was all real to me and I felt every inch of it. And now I'm done feeling that darkly, feeling like I were drowning under the weight of my own murky thoughts and unsaid words because it finally, thankfully, amazingly, feels like I'm coming up for air.
-x-
A few months ago, it felt like everything around me, in me, came unraveled. What happened was large in my scheme of things, and I felt winded, like the spaces in my chest had just become hollow. That's what it felt like. Perhaps it sounds melodramatic, that's ok too. It wouldn't have been a big blow for other people, but ever since I'd left home, I'd anchored my life onto the people around me who showed me care and affection. Without even realizing it, I'd tried to build something of a family beyond the one back home, create a safety net. I suppose we all do it. I'd woven relationships with my friends into this fabric with more care and love than I have ever acknowledged or given myself credit for. I guess I've just never pictured myself that way. Sometimes, strangely, it's hard to see the best in oneself. But then, a few months ago, this little safety net unraveled and I felt suspended.While the why and how of it were all important until a few weeks ago because the blame and wound were both fresh, it hardly matters now. I went from feeling like the luckiest girl in the world, to feeling absolutely lost and wretched. I was lost about myself, my life, the course it was suddenly taking. I haven't been that low in a long while and it bought back some horrible ghosts from the past. I realized what someone had told me once was so true, I felt my joys and sorrows, my peaks and troughs fully. When I was happy, I was truly happy and when I was sad, well, God help me.
This time around, when things went pear shaped, I couldn't even hold myself from tripping over. I just plain fell flat. I cannot, do not, want to put into words the strange thoughts that traipsed through my mind the last few months, because that would just be too ugly. One thing after another kept pulling me down, lower lower lower. I really haven't been myself these last few months. Haven't felt one bit like me. Infact, I realized at some point when I was thinking half-sanely, without heaping blame, anger, dirt on myself, that I'd forgotten what made me me. This realization only pulled me deeper down. I can't believe the things I was thinking, all the complaining I did, all the shoulders I sought. I couldn't even console myself. At one point, I wasn't able to recognize who I was anymore. I just couldn't figure out why it hurt so badly, what were these aches about, why did this stuff matter so much? Couldn't I just dust myself off and walk along once again, the way I knew I had done so many times before?
I tried things to make me feel better, but this load, it was just too heavy. I felt despicable because I could feel the people around me sour on my bitterness, tell me, "Pull yourself together woman, there's more to life than this." I just kept drowning in it all though. To each his own. Well, almost.
But it's true. There is a time for everything. And now, as the seasons slowly turn in the air and in the earth, I'm coming around. Finally. Nothing "happened". Time is just taking its course and bringing me to a point where I can safely look behind me and say, "Well, that's that." I'm not quite there yet, but I'm out of the dark. I'm not drowning anymore. It's been overwhelming me for so long now, this terribly ugly feeling I've had sitting like a rock inside of me, and now, it isn't there any more. To me, the feeling inside me today, it feels a little like magic, wisdom and simplicity braided together.
I know what I need now. And I know I'll find it, I know I'm on my way already. Just to realize that for all this time I've sought my worth in my relationships with people and not inside myself, that I've been looking to the people I love to make sense of my troubles and confusions for me, to support me in my small and large crises because I didn't trust myself to do it alone, that I built that safety net so carefully from the relationships I built with people, but I paid no attention to first building a relationship with me- do you know how sweet these understandings are?
I am figuring things out. Piecing things together, my own knowledge of me.
I can't tell you how good it feels suddenly to have that rock of feeling lift away, to not feel like I'm drowning any more and waiting, in need of rescue. Because rescue and consolation came, and it came from just the right place- from me.
I re-started this blog in an attempt to make myself do one of the things I like doing best, that keep me centred, writing. And I just haven't been able to put my thoughts out of myself, mould them into words and sentences. They've sputtered and coughed and made little half sentences on the screen. It felt like there was a plug jammed somewhere that wouldn't let the words out of me. But I knew the moment I felt myself again, the words would flow.
I'm writing this on the blog tonight and the words are swimming out of me. Smooth and unhindered like before. I don't care if this makes no sense to people, I don't care if it sounds like melodrama, I don't care because it was all real to me and I felt every inch of it. And now I'm done feeling that darkly, feeling like I were drowning under the weight of my own murky thoughts and unsaid words because it finally, thankfully, amazingly, feels like I'm coming up for air.
