Saturday, October 5, 2013

And So Where DO I Belong?

This hasn't been an emotionally healthy day for me today. I'm not sure what's going on but I'm having trouble handling it. My soul feels closed off and dry. I have anxiety. I went to the grocery store and sat for a moment in the parking lot to try and figure out what I was feeling. My head pounded and my feet felt very, very far away. I thought to myself, "Oh, this is ridiculous," and got out and went into the store that I know as well as I know my own backyard and did my shopping and bought food and paper towels and fabric softener and it was fine but the entire time I was in there I felt as if I was disassociating, everything felt strained and uncomfortable.
I don't like feeling like this.

Mr. Moon came home a day early and I think he probably wishes he had not. What to do with a wife who is having a hard time making conversation?
Well, he's been here before. He's seen me like this too many times to count. At least I cleaned his bathroom. At least I did that.

It's turned out to be a beautiful day, warm and dry with the sun shining and the hummingbirds and butterflies hovering over the firespike since this morning. Every year I cut some of the blooming spikes and bring them in to root in vases of water over the winter and then in the spring I plant them here and there around the yard but I'm having a hard time bringing myself to cut them this year. I don't want to deny the beautiful tiny flying things who sip at the red blossoms, although I suppose that in rooting them and planting more, I am providing for them in the years to come.

I look at Facebook and one of my adventuresome friends is out kayaking and doing yoga and Tai Chi and seeing dolphins and eagles. Another joyful friend is in Panama City at the beach, happy with the sky and waves beyond his balcony. People are at football games and hanging out with friends and I got an e-mail from a friend who is in Philadelphia doing an art appreciation thing, taking in the museums and galleries and restaurants and people and here I am, here I sit, bumbling on about my firespike and the clean bathroom and the grocery store and my dried-up little soul and my far-away feet as if any of it mattered. I feel like a failure as a human being today.

I feel uncomfortable in my skin, in my head, in my words and in my world as if I don't belong in any of them.

It is one of those days. I am just so very grateful that all of them are not like this.





25 comments:

  1. I so completely know the experience of going on Facebook and coming away with the impression that everyone out there has a life but me. On days like this I do wish we lived down the street from one another, and could sit together, ideally in rocking chairs on a porch or around a kitchen table, sipping...something...and we'd talk or not talk, whatever the moment decided. Where do you belong? In my heart. In all our hearts. Your life is huge and expansive and never ever doubt that that is so. I am grateful to know you.

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  2. Angella- If only. Oh, honey, if only we could sit together and talk about all of it. Can you imagine the tears, the laughter?

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  3. I get the anxious and disassociated feeling. I have had that before too. And some days I don't accomplish much but I do know that there are certain things that free my soul. I go towards those things when I feel out of touch.

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  4. O god, that feeling of having your feet too far away? I thought that was just me.

    I went (alone) to the wedding of my former student, a swell guy, today. And somewhere between the "keep Christ between you and your spouse" (seems weird, no? Why is Jesus in bed with us?) and the endless parade of tulle and taffeta and thin, impossibly beautiful 20 somethings, I thought I was going to rattle apart. I bolted after the ceremony, skipping the reception, and have washed all my floors and bathrooms and am now hunkered on my couch.

    Anxiety sucks. You can come over here and I'll make you a strong drink. I've decided that's the only cure tonight.

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  5. I drove all the way out to the outlet malls today, and had a hard time leaving the parking lot. It just wasn't my day. It's the cosmos.

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  6. Syd- You are such a rare guy. I wish you could know how much I appreciate your presence here and on the planet.

    Sara- Good Lord. What IS Jesus doing in bed with the newly weds? I would have bolted too. I only have one clean bathroom but it will do. And have had two strong drinks. This will take me through until tomorrow when maybe things will be better. Thanks for giving me your words tonight. I do not take them lightly.

    SJ- Ah, honey. Perhaps it is the cosmos. Did you buy anything? Did it help?

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  7. I bought two pants and two shirts, and one giant smoothie which cured all my ails. I came back home without massive road rage and these days, that's a success.

    Then I came home and cleaned my own bathroom, because I think you and I are soulmates.

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  8. PS -Sara, you sound like my kind of people.

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  9. SJ- I do believe you may be right. And yes. Sara does belong here. Obviously.

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  10. I'm sorry you've had this kind of day today - but you (& apparently everyone else) are one up me - I haven't cleaned my bathroom today. Yet anyway.

    I haven't experienced anxiety like that, but I have lethargy (& low level depression) in spades. I almost always blamed my cycle - and now I blame menopause. Makes it easier somehow.

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  11. Things are wonky right now all around. It's like the biggest full moon in the history of the world, and it won't go away.

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  12. Well, I'm pleased that you didn't list me as one of your FB friends, busy surfing in Bora Bora or finishing the final postions of the Kama Sutra with her new boyfriend. I sat at a baseball field IN THE VALLEY all fucking day.

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  13. Oh Mary, I go to that place from time to time and it always sucks. I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and think, "you are such a hag, and, you should be doing this, you should be doing that", etc., etc., ad nauseam. When I get to that place, it helps to know that it will pass. One of my mentors, George H., told me many years ago, "All things must pass", and it is the honest truth.

    I don't do Facebook at all. The very thought of it freaks me out.

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  14. p.s. Elizabeth, you are hilarious!

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  15. You belong right where you are. With Gibson and Owen and Jesse and Lily and May and Hank and Mr Moon and the spouses of those who have spouses and your grand pets and chickens and dogs too. Anyone can make life look thrilling on Facebook and blogs too but how many are as authentic as you I wonder? And as full of love? I know you have hard days and I am not making light of that. I do think your life is as full as those who choose to use their time in other ways. Sweet Jo

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  16. Oh, Lord, Facebook is such a nightmare sometimes. I really think comparing yourself and your life with others is just madness. Or it invites madness. None of us knows the unhappiness and struggles of those people who seem so outwardly "together." You know?

    Anyway, it sounds like you have a beautiful day there, and while I don't discount your anxiety, I hope you are also able to truly appreciate the firespikes and the Florida sunsets and all the things that many of us don't get to see. :)

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  17. Yes we all have these days, I'm so glad they generally pass by. Maybe writing helps.... transporting to a different and sunnier place....

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  18. My life according to everyone else's is dull and boring. But the life other's write on FB is not really what is going on. It is just a snippet. A tiny scrap of life.

    Days that are dark will pass to ones with light and back again. Then back to dark. Who knows why.

    You are never alone. xo

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  19. I can only echo what everyone else has already said. Last night was a new moon, so maybe that's why everyone feels a bit out of sorts. I know I've been thisclose to bawling my face off for three days, and about as grouchy as can be. Surely, today will be different.
    Big hugs. Xox

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  20. The grocery store is where most of my disassociative breakdowns occur. There's something artificial and off kilter about the overwhelming consumerism and it feels like I'm trapped in a funhouse sometimes, trying to get my stuff and get out without becoming induced to buy things I don't need. And then when I get home, the putting away of all the stuff I just bought, it is soul sucking to me. It makes me feel like an alien visitor to my planet sometimes, and I've had to try not to cry in the grocery store more times than I can remember. The bigger the store, the bigger the crazies.

    I wonder why we judge ourselves so? You are nowhere near a failure in any sense of the word. When I'm having those weird days the song that pops into my head is Jackson Brown singing I'm gonna be a happy idiot... because I can never stop thinking long enough to be happy, and I feel like a pretender most days. It's probably not much help, but you are not alone.

    Hopefully today will be a better day. And I've love to join you all on the porch for cocktails too. There would be laughter and tears for sure.
    xo

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  21. It has taken me much too long to accept that days like this are part of me. We are not allowed to feel out of sync, not as women, not as mothers and certainly not as indivudals-who-have-it-all, well apparently. And if the shit hits the fan, someone may even offer us a couple of shiny pills.
    Well BS.
    I think you are doing the best, you write about it, you observe it, you are aware of the mysterious cranking and whirling that our mind and body and soul - not to forget the blasted hormones - come up with.
    As with everything in life, it will change. It this case, for the better.
    Take care, be gentle with yourself. Bearthe in, breathe out. We have to let it happen to us, the beauty and the terror.

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  22. if you can get the bathroom cleaned while feeling like that you are ahead of the game. I don't seem to get any cleaning done no matter how good or bad I feel. dust everywhere.

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  23. The Bug- Hormones at the root of all of it. Maybe? Who knows? Another mystery. Sucks when it happens.

    Jill- Seriously.

    Elizabeth- I'm so jealous. You know watching baseball games was my favorite Mom-activity.

    Lulumarie- I should stay off of Facebook. I really should.
    And you are NOT a hag and you know it.

    Sweet Jo- You. Are. Sweet.
    Thank you.

    Steve Reed- Oh, I do appreciate what I have. You know I do. Sometimes I just wonder though- have I shut myself into my own beautiful prison?

    Jenny Woolf- It's such a big world, isn't it?

    Birdie- It helps, knowing I'm not alone. Thank you.

    Heartinhand- I too feel very, very tearful. It sucks. May things get better for all of us.

    Mel- I'm usually pretty okay in the grocery store. I don't know what happened yesterday. I'm sorry it's a hard place for you because how in hell do we avoid it? Isn't it odd how many of us are walking around with our emotions held so closely to us that we look normal? Whatever normal is. Maybe we should all still be in the forest, foraging. I don't now.

    Sabine- Thank you. Yes. It is important to remember that there is a rhythm to it all and that we have to accept the dark with the light. I wonder why it's so hard when it is so common?

    Ellen Abbott- Well, trust me. That is the one shining place of clean in this entire house.

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  24. You expressed that feeling I have too often. Just had the worst birthday week ever and am almost out of it. Bad side effects to meds. Thank you for being there.

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  25. Here is what I will say about this: You give so many of us permission to be human and warped and regular. I love that about you. Your imperfections is so perfect. That is why we come back and feel like your old friends after just one post.

    By the way, every time I read your pancake posts, I feel like a cooking failure. Ha. I always think, "Damn. And I'm too tired to even pop some Eggo waffles down for my kids."

    Love you, Sister Moon.

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