The Eye of the Storm

The boy has taken up screaming at bedtime again.  I'm sure it's related to the many recent upheavals in his life, but I had so hoped this was behind us.  Tonight, he screamed for two and a half hours before finally collapsing into sleep, and the silence he left behind is deafening me with recrimination.  There must be something wrong with him, but even so it's my fault - I made him, and I haven't been able to figure out WHY he is like this, despite many a doctor's trip over the years.  How can anything ever feel like a success when this child so often feels like my worst failure.  I feel out of ideas and out of hope, and yet I was already so close to the bone, hopewise, that I can't feel the pain quite as much as usual.  Maybe hopelessness is the answer and not the question, something to be dealt with, not solved.

Shut up already

Why can't I just BE unhappy and shut up about it?  It doesn't make it better to blab, just gives temporary not-quite-relief that ends up being more shame, more humiliation, and a deep desire to have not spoken.  It hurts too much to stay quiet, but just like crying about physical pain, the pain isn't really affected by the noise.  I'm afraid if I'm quiet I'll slip slide surrender to the deeper quiet and get lost for good.  So I make a string of pointless words and hopeless queries and hold myself up on it like the magic feather or the emperor's clothes, trying not to look hard enough to see that nothing is holding me up at all, that I'm already falling.

Finding joy in the slow lane

We're snowed in, the house insulated and muzzled inside a snowglobe.  My daughter is fighting a cold and passed out on the couch.  I hear her snoring on one side and the little boys playing nicely for once on the other.  It is peaceful, quiet, Christmassy.  I have good friends, good kids, a good life.  The enforced slowness of the storm makes me realize that I need to slow down myself, need to not borrow trouble, need to not give so much attention to the ache in my chest that says I will always be alone, that I will never be understood.  The ache is real but it isn't everything, and it doesn't deserve the space it takes up in my head.  I will wrap it in cotton and shove it into a corner and take the good in what comes my way, even if it doesn't always come in the shape I think I want.

Floating

Things got worse but may be getting better, at least in some ways.  The semester is over, my mother's out of the hospital, other big bads seem to be taking at least a hiatus.  I feel like I've taken off too-tight pants, like I can breathe a little easier.  I'm trying to cultivate positive thinking, to hoarde a pile of reasons this struggle is worth it like nuts against the possibility of a long winter.  Perversely, I've found something new and utterly unnecessary to also fret about, but I'm trying to zen-think it out of the mainstream of negative thought.  I need to feng shui my brain, clear the clutter and let in the light.  I practice letting go and feel like I may be floating, however briefly, instead of exhaustingly treading water.

Realism

I feel the inexorable tug of depression, the dark promise it holds to wrap me up in warm darkness.  I fight it by inches, never gaining on it but keeping it from swallowing me whole.  The hardest times are when I can't remember why the fight is worth it, when it seems that depression is not the pathology it has become but another word for realism.  This is my life.  There's no reason to expect it to get better, and it could certainly be worse.  Maybe the idea that happiness is achievable, even an entitlement, is the real pathology.  Why should I get happiness?  The biggest mistakes I've made were things I did in an effort to push back the bleakness and grab my piece of joy.  I think the better option may be to strive for acceptance rather than happiness.  This is it, this is all there is; and yet, I watch the people around me live their lives with passion and energy.  In my lighter moments, I look for hope in their example, but right now their efforts seem futile, their hopes sad in light of their inevitable frustration.

Bitch, bitch, bitch

I am so over myself.  All I do is complain, and when I get tired of hearing myself whine out loud and bite my tongue, I still hear the litany in my head.  I don't even know what I want, what I expect to be different, what end I want to have in sight.  I need a lobotomy, or a week in a hotel with bad pay per view, or a winning lottery ticket, or a padded soundproof room.  I think I need a hiatus, but really?  That couldn't end well.  The last thing I need is the company of my own thoughts.

Gratitude

It's easier to walk the line today, when my only responsibility is to cook and eat ridiculous amounts of food. Even so, the trap in my brain has its hair trigger, ready to snap shut at every argument between the kids, every misplaced shoe or coat. I napped after dinner and dreamed of horror, of fear and malignancy and dark things hunting, and woke up sweating and scared.

I cast my net for a stable support, someone or something to prop me up and make the charade easier to maintain. That kind of weakness is dangerous, though; I know I should be trying to strengthen my own legs instead of damsel-in-distressing.

Of course, I am lucky, I do know that. Today is a day for gratitude, and there is much to be thankful for. My children, most of all - so much tougher and more resilient than I am, thank goodness, and so creative and spirited and beautiful. My mother, who makes it possible for me to move toward that so-far-away light at the end of this tunnel. Even the lessons, so painfully learned, that I should have known by instinct or common sense - even those are worth gratitude. Better late than never and all that. And so I will finish my day with my thanks in mind, for these things and for so much more. I will try to remember my luck and let go of my worries and hopes, at least when they become too heavy to hold.

Hollow

I spend every day on a tightrope, desperately seeking balance. When it comes, in brief pulses, it is such a relief that the euphoria sets me back off-kilter, flailing around with my balancing bar and scanning the horizon for the rope's end.

How many mistakes is too many? I dream of clean slates, yearn for fresh starts. I try to be all good things, hoping that living well will pave a firmer path. But trying to be good at everything, I fail at it all. I end each day with regrets, new on top of old, and a need to talk, to talk and talk and talk, as if it would help. As if anyone would listen. As if I would know what to say. The words are in my chest, weighing me down, pressing out my breath.

I am annoyed. A pencil falls, is replaced on the table, falls again, and I can hardly keep from screaming my frustration. It never stops raining, it drizzles and mists and damps all over splat squish squeak. I am contradictions - bored but too busy, sad but giddy, lonely but craving solitude. I am procrastination. I am lack of motivation. I am remorse.