And maybe they are, but I’m not allowing myself the ability to try to rationally think, feel, process, pick myself back up. And in all honestly, it’s not that I’m not just not allowing myself that, I am utterly incapable of it.
I don’t want to share, I don’t want to think, I don’t want to feel, I don’t want to people, I don’t want to process. I want to continue to pull far inside, hidden and shut down, completely and absolutely shut down. It’s all so real, so raw, so intense, so loud, so overwhelming, so visceral.
I feel I am only a small breath away from a full panic attack at any moment. And the only way I know how to survive at this moment is to do everything in my power to shut down, to flatline, to only allow today.
No yesterdays, no tomorrows – just the right here and the right now.
The insanity within me right now is very very real, and very very unstable. A week ago I unexpectedly reached a moment when #onemorething happened, and I didn’t have the capacity to process it. I was at absolute max capacity of all I was capable of dealing with rationally, all I was capable of holding within the palms of my mom hands, only I didn’t know it until I was thrown that next thing and there was just no more room.
No more rational, no more anything, except the insanity. Only the insanity within.
I couldn’t think, I couldn’t process, I couldn’t deal, I couldn’t comprehend, I couldn’t find a way to stop the inner demons all screaming and racing and banging all wild child inside me.
So I didn’t.
I finally pulled myself somewhat back together enough to know I must stop thinking, processing, dealing, comprehending all together for a while. Survival mode as my only option. Leave me the fuck alone mode. I retreated to the deep recesses of my inner manic self.
Breath in, breath out.
Breath in, breath out.
No social media, no selfies, no thinking, feeling, processing whenever possible. Numb, flatlined, disconnected as much as I can disconnect. I just can’t even.
And this is how I’ve sat for the last while. My inner voices either utterly still and dormant or so out-of-control and so loud I can’t even begin to describe its reality.
This weekend we said no lake, no #sunsetoclock. When the place you once sought refuge at, the place that healed and helped now holds pain, angst, and big emotions, it’s just not the same appeal and desire to go back.
This weekend, I took a deep breath and said yes to the hubs last minute plan to venture to the city a few hours away and go to the zoo. Just the three of us. They said masks were required and had strict guidelines on the number of people in the park.
I admit, I was very disappointed in their lack of mask enforcement and felt social distancing was not at all an option. There were running, climbing, touching children with every turn and step, and crowds and lines and people everywhere. And the people that chose to purposely defy the mask requirements, especially within the buildings – left me with rising anger and bitterness by the time we finally left. Hot, tired, hungry, disappointed, overwhelmed.
We then waited forty-five minutes outside before we could go in for our table at a restaurant that had an aloof waiter that was asking for a 28% tip on our bill. I am never one to under-tip, and totally realize the way of the world is different now with less tables to serve and higher risks to them, but I felt it a little pushy of an ask for me.
And then we put our masks on again and walked into a large retail sports store. The boys headed off together, and I found myself walking around getting to look at things, try things on, contemplate possible purchases… in person. This was the first time I had been out shopping in person since early March. This wasn’t an online, essentials only, from my home, buying experience. And I admit, it was really nice. I allowed myself to look, to want, to dream just a little. I bought a new puzzle for my son and I (for when I’m sure we’ll going to get shut down again for Covid 2.0 after schools continue to open up for in person learning) and a special gift for a friend that I didn’t know I needed to get until I saw it.
Yesterday, I woke up after turning my alarm off over four hours earlier, and told myself it was time to do something hard. It was time to get myself out of bed, get myself out there, and get some serious weekend running mileage in. It was time to put on a dress, drive over to our physical church building and make myself walk inside to get to be a part of a beautiful service ordaining my dear friend into the pastoralship of the church.
I sat there in the parking lot looking at the front doors. Doors I used to enter every day when I worked there as the facilities and communications manager. The doors I entered nearly every day of the entire life of our #faithmaryjo. So very many emotions lie on those very door handles allowing one to go from outside to inside within the matter of a few steps. The job, the responsibilities, the time, the friendships, the hardships, the meetings, the goodbyes, the hellos all still so alive and fresh immediately coursed through me as I reached out to pull open those doors.
This was the first time I have physically entered this building, these people, since February. I’ve watched online, and as I sat there in my car wiling my body to move, I also was well aware that I don’t even know where I am with God right now. I’m not filled with the anger that I’ve carried towards Him before, but I know we’re not in a great place together, He and I. He’s probably trying to call, to whisper, to pull me to Him and I am purposely not listening, not allowing Him (or anyone else) in right now.
Access to me is shut off right now for nearly one and all, including God. In time I assume this will again change, as it always seems to, but for now – I chalk my spiritual health right up there with my mental and physical health and it’s all under bright flashing neon lights screaming #htomessexpress.
But yesterday I made myself do hard things. I made myself finish the last day of the new workout program I had committed to. I made myself put on the running clothes and get through a #sevenmilesunday training day. I made myself open my eyes and see the nature around me, daring myself to identify seven specific beautiful things while out on that run. One of those, being an unexpected encounter with someone I work with, whom I haven’t seen in person since March. It completely and totally caught me off guard, and yet, it was so nice to see and connect, live in person – not just via my silent computer screen with its blinking cursor of moving letters.
I put on a dress and entered a public building that holds many many memories and emotions for me. And as I stood there in the lobby looking around, I found myself thinking to the crowds of people I had been around the previous day at the zoo, the restaurant, the store, two and a half hours away. There is a really big difference being brave and going out in public surrounded by total strangers, and then there is an entirely different being brave and going to a public place filled with faces you know, faces with names and stories and memories all woven together with your own.
I’m not ready to step back into the light. I’m not ready to fully feel and see and know. I’m not ready to dive back into social media and the news, the covid statistics, the presidential politics, all the things flinging hate and confusion and unrest into the world and my home. I’m not ready to travel back to the lake. I’m not ready to allow myself to surface from this rock bottom low I’ve crashed into.
I’m not wanting to wallow, I’m not wanting pity, I’m not wanting advice on meds and therapists. I’m just not wanting to feel, to hurt, to process, to re-enter the noise and chaos and loss of control. I’m just allowing myself to be selfish and put myself first, knowing I need time to allow myself be failed and fallen and fully broken.
Failed and fallen and fully broken… and for some reason not in a rush to pick myself back up, to try put it all back together again in some perfect put together package that I know will never exist.
I am a mess, inside and out. A messier mess than my normal #hotmessexpress. This is residing in me at a whole different level. This is worse than what I experienced after finding out and coming to grips about Faith.
This is me, this is who I am, this is who God created me to be. Yes, I’m sure that He, and myself, know I’m capable of more, of far better and greater than the dirty heap I’m currently lying in, and in time I will (hopefully?) attempt to climb my way back up and come to terms with where I am and where I need to go spiritually, mentally and physically… but for now, for today, I will continue to hide, to pull away, pull inward and lie low in the dark, praying for quiet, stillness, relief around and within… begging for the demons to recede, to pull away and stop their incessant screaming and crying out in all their angst, emotions, and discontentment.
It’s ok to not be ok. And today, I am not ok. And I am simply ok with that.
