I no longer have the capacity to really let anything more in.
Right now life is hard, and frankly it just sucks all the way around. There’s covid-19, rampant forest fires, presidential and political adds, debates, and general crap everywhere. No one is happy, no one is getting along, no one is healthy physically, let alone mentally.
Honestly it’s just really too much for me if I attempt to process is on a finite scale.
I found myself trying to make myself listen to the daily podcasts in my social wellness group, and then on to my once favorite running podcasts, and I was left… just feeling lost, empty, broken… less than. And well, I was feeling very “/ lost / empty / broken / less than” before I even started listening, so what good was any of it possibly doing me?
The last thing that I need right now is more feeling of inadequacy and not enough. What I assumed was supposed to be making me better, stronger, faster – was in fact just dragging me further and further down.
The bodies, the muscles, the mile paces, the distance times, the business successes, the money, the positivity, the home remodels, the DIY covid projects, the all-together all-the-time, the homeschooling, the beautiful and clean homes and living / working spaces, the tidy lives, the happy children, the romantic spouses. Ugh.
My house is a mess, my life is a mess, my body is a mess, and Lord knows… my mental health is a mess.
I stopped listening to all of it, and really to background music all together, I don't even have the radio on in the car. On rare occassion I will listen to some classical piano by Michele McLaughlin. I quit Melissa Radke and Mel Robbins Live's months ago, and I can’t even Rachel Hollis, Glennon Doyle, and Jen Hatmaker right now #justNO.
I stopped reading self help and started reading fiction. I have read the entire Twilight Saga since July and have thoroughly enjoyed it. I’m currently reading another Stephanie Meyer book, The Chemist, and enjoying it much more than anticipated. I am still watching zero TV. No tv shows, no reality shows, no news, nothing. Ok, except season 2 reruns of What Not To Wear and an occasion Twilight movie (only after having completed reading the book, yeah I’m one of “those” people) while on my treadmill during the really long training days.
Over the last several months I’ve kept my mouth shut, my brain as closed down as possible, and my emotions and feelings flatlined. Survival mode. I quit blogging, I quit trying to think, to process, to reason, to argue with myself, or anyone else for that matter … self preservation mode at its finest. Multi-tasking, once one of my finer talents, not even an option.
I’ve given up all in-person running races. Well, the world and covid basically forced me initially into this, but I am pretty sure that I will continue to only race solo / virtual from now on. Oh, I’m still training and earning the occasional virtual run bling to help support causes close to my heart… but my goals and training is self tailored just for me, merely as a reason to keep myself moving, keep myself motivated, and keep getting myself up every morning to get those miles, muscles, and self sought challenges and goals met.
Over the last eight or nine days, I have slowly felt myself emerging from this current absolute black night of my depth and soul. I feel myself finally being able to look up, raise my head… just a little. I find myself finally able to extend my hand, just ever the slightest to those around me, those close to me, to look, to ask, to try and connect with how they are. And I am finding with everyone’s reply, everyone’s response – we are all in a collective hot mess right now. It’s not just me struggling just to get from one day to the next… it’s everyone. All of us.
I believe the entire world, country, community, town, neighborhood is being rocked to their very cores right now with everything going on in the world.
We are all a mess. We are all hurting. We are all lost. We are all struggling. And this brings out the best in some of us, and it brings out the absolutely worst in some of us. When you mix hot mess with a world full of sickness, and hatred, and fear, and utter ugly… it only makes everything that much worse, snowballing tenfold and quickly enfolding everyone and everything in the midst of its wild free-fall and destruction.
Honestly I think we are all hanging on by a tiny little thread. Many of us thought we were a mess before all this, before 2020 arrived. And now, most of us are just praying for the days when the pre-2020 mess was as bad as what it was.
We are living in a time and reality that no one has ever lived through before. Most feel they are navigating all of this blind, and feeling completely alone. I don’t think people are actually honestly admitting to this, but I just know I cannot be the only one laying on the very bottom of the dark hole I’m in, with my eyes squeezed shut tight, trying to just will away the lost and hurt and broken all around me.
At first, all this lost and alone was almost “novel” and I felt somewhat ok and justified in all the mayhem scouring within me. But then somewhere along the line this summer, everyone seemed to pick themselves back up and go on living, go back to normal. Back to no masks, no social distancing, no overall care or fear of general public safety. The schools started back in full person learning, and suddenly the little safe bubble within my home, was no longer safe. Even if I stayed home, if I wore the masks, if I did the social distancing, if I quarantined…. It no longer was enough. Because now my child was leaving and coming back into my safe bubble every day, and my safe bubble was no longer … my safe bubble.
The day school started it went from not “if” I will get covid, but “when.” And that was a really hard reality for me to come to terms with. Yes, I could have kept him at home, but I really didn’t feel like that was an option or choice. And I’m not writing this to bring up any controversy or access for anyone to come at with me any remarks or judgements. I’m simply stating what I am feeling. I’m not afraid of getting sick or of dying from covid. But you know what, I’ve worked ridiculously hard for my current state of physical health, and someone else being able to take that away from me, I find frustrating.
I don’t want to have anything hurled back at me involving politics, or sickness, or immunizations or anything derogatory. I am merely wanting to ask for, no…beg for, everyone to just choose to be kind. Choose to not spread the hate. Choose to do the next right thing, take the next high road, make the next wise choice.
We are all dealing with some form of mental messiness right now. Some are handling it better than others, some are hiding it better than others, but I am convinced… we are all in various states of hot mess right now, and I just desperately want us all to figure out how to try love better and hate less, how to try see better and ignore less, how to try listen better and assume less, how to try heal better and hurt less.
Oh I have so many things, and yet find myself at an utter loss to find the words to try say anything at all. I’m so far from perfect, and so at a loss as to what to even do next, that I am left here grappling with the reality at hand, and rendered basically mute and helpless.
My heart is aching, my soul is weary, my head is barely wanting to work. I want to remain closed off, shut off, shut down. I don’t want to see, or feel, or hear any more negativity and strife. I want to feel the sunshine and experience the warmth of love, hope, grace, and acceptance. I want health and happiness and simple, quiet peace. And really, why in the world has that become too much to ask for?
Oh come Lord Jesus, oh please come quickly.
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