Another day older

Alliteratively, I finally finished finals.  This strange year is over, and in my hazy memory it is blanketed in darkness, colors of fear and anxiety, with startling splashes of vibrancy and hope.  I don't know if it's age or wisdom finally accumulating or simple exhaustion, but I feel that I am learning to focus on the present and let the future take care of itself.  I don't want to miss the joys of today any more, don't want to keep borrowing trouble.

My beautiful children - I've spent the last few weeks balancing on the knife's edge of self and school and kids, and they have been so surprising, the bright points in my busy days.  I can almost smell the sunscreen and chlorine of impending summer, and I can't wait to see them, skin darkening and hair lightening, running around the pool filled with joy.  It is hard to hold on to regrets when I think about any alternate life that wouldn't have included my wonderful strange small people.

Tranquil

The days of peacefulness extend both forward and back from this unexpected oasis of time.  Anxiety has called a recess, depression has rejected the too-obvious calling of bad weather, irritation has gone to find someone else to bother and itch.  Circumstances remain but seem surmountable, strangely, and less urgent.

Grey

Today was a good day, better than maybe any day I've had this dismal, grey, snowy, eternal winter of a year.  Good news, good self-control, good feelings about the present and future, good feelings about maybe some day putting away the past.  I'm grateful to have had the break, I really am.  The high didn't last all that long, though - it's almost 1am and I've slid back down from rosy pink through neutral beige and into the imminent-danger grey zone.  Grey is the worst color, I think.  Black is at least absolute, white is hopeful and bright (even if all-too-present in the form of snow).  Grey just makes my eyes hungry, and its emotional equivalent makes the rest of me feel like one big yearning.  Not even sure what I'm yearning for.  Something with meaning?  Seems so trite.  Someone else's color to mix with this desolation?  Not really, not now, I don't have the energy.  I feel so flat, it's almost worse than feeling outright awful, or maybe it's just like the eternal debate over whether itching or pain is worse.  Better to feel terrible or nothing at all?  Terrible is terrible but nothing has the potential to go on and on and on....

Time Flies, etc

Impending birthdays don't usually faze me much - mostly I just look forward to cake and attention (or, more likely, nothing much at all).  This year, though, it strikes me that I've been a real live grownup for over a decade, and that decade went so startlingly fast.  I haven't quite caught up.  I don't feel any different than the girl I was ten years ago, not way down deep where who I really am lives.  I have accumulated people and responsibilities and experiences in these years but not wisdom, I fear, or the foresight to tell bad choices from good up front.  My brain and my heart are just as disconnected as they ever were; my brain does okay with a little prodding in the motivation department, my heart has no sense at all.  I decided today that the fleeting nature of time sort of makes sense in terms of the seasons of families.  I had my kids in my 20s, and their baby years were tedious to the point of desperation but always busy, always filled with small urgencies.  As they get older and more self-sufficient (thank god), I have a moment to breathe and reflect on how little of my life has gone as I'd have hoped and imagined.  How unfortunate.  I'm guessing that my 30s will be filled with a lot of this discontent, this second-adolescent angst, this raging against pointlessness, and that my 40s will end the angst with new urgencies related to raising teenagers.  I have too little imagination to figure out 50s and beyond, but I know when I get there I'll say the same thing, that I don't know where the time went, and then feel another pang of mediocrity at my lack of originality.

Aches and Pains

It's hard to keep an even keel when it feels like there's no break between storms, both literal and figurative.  I make new month's resolutions, then new week's, and finally I'm playing it minute by minute, resolving to be positive, to appreciate the good things that seem so fleeting and just endure the bad things that seem to go on and on and on.  I try to remember to let go of the things I can not change, or however that goes, but it seems like just about everything is outside my control, so it's a lot to let go of.  I can't find a groove.  I'm an aging, scratchy record.

I should sleep, but I want to write.  I should write, but I can only think of words for these feelings when I'm not at the keyboard.  In class, in the car, playing with the kids - at those times, I have to wrench myself back to the present, away from the thoughts that are so hard to channel into words now that I have the opportunity to try.  I feel like everything should be easier, that I'm missing a key somewhere.  Does everyone struggle like this, or am I really just doing it all wrong?

Oh, snow.

I've let the blog lapse yet again, but if I were to post it would be one big blank sheet of white - the whole world's been erased by snow and it feels like normalcy may never be restored.  It's hard not to see it as a metaphor for my life, but it's probably a little too egocentric to believe that this apocalyptic weather is all about me.  I have so many more questions than answers, way too much time on my hands and not enough motivation to follow through on even the easiest of the steps toward a way out of the formlessness.  I hate to just let things happen, hate not having a hand in my own fate, but I'm so tired, so snowed-in, it's so easy to believe nothing I do matters anyway.

Holding Time

Another month is ending, not quite soon enough, another month I wouldn't choose to relive if given the choice.  Not horrible, but a struggle almost every day, just to get through.  I remember from Laura Ingalls Wilder's The Long Winter that her father strung a rope from the house to the barn and used it to guide him through blizzards, so he wouldn't get blown off course and freeze to death feet from his house, walking in circles.  I string myself a similar rope of small happinesses to guide me back to a place where living is, if not a constant joy, at least not a constant effort. 

My rope is made up, in large part, of the fresh smell and soft cheeks of my children, of their sweet small hands around my neck and their squeaky small voices in my ear.  Of my pride in the big boy for always pursuing justice and trying so hard to do the right thing.  The smaller boy fighting his own emotional roller coaster but trying hard, so hard, not to lose his temper.  The twins' enviable love for each other, their long periods of play divided by small bursts of ridiculous fighting.  My guiderope is also made of friends and family and even the structure of school, helping me put one foot in front of the other when it is all too tempting to just stand in the blizzard and let it have me.  It is the promise of the future, in small things as well as large - a trip, a graduation, a change in weather.  It's not a bad rope, actually.  I think it will do.

And when I reach the end of this rope (not the end of MY rope, that's an entirely different thing), I know life will still have challenges.  I know I will still have days that are hard to wade through.  But, hopefully, there will again be times that I would capture if I could, times sweet enough that I will wish I could relive them again and again.  Times I want to hold in my hands and keep safe.

American highway

I drive home late, so very tired, and the sound and fury of tires on pavement lull me into a peaceful reverie.  Time out of time, time and place suspended as I listen to bad pop music and have four full lanes all to myself.  This freeway, ubiquitous product of American rushing and sprawling, could be anywhere.  I imagine myself on I-10 in LA, on I-5 in Seattle, on I-40 in Tennesee.  I am anywhere and everywhere, and for these moments I am alone in the best sense of the word.  I can imagine my mistakes yet unmade, my challenges far in the future, and feel only the love and the goodness that surrounds me, often hard to find under the competing noise of my life's current upheaval.  The motion of the car soothes me, and although I yearn for home and bed and rest, I don't really want to take my exit.  I want to wrap myself up in this moment and this feeling for just a little longer.

House of Cards

One bad day makes everything feel so untenable.  I feel like a big mistake I made a while back may color everything forever.  I do feel remorse, but I don't know if or how to express it.  I can't think of any way to make amends.  I try to live right, to be good now, to not make more mistakes.  I know that doesn't repair anything, but I can't think what else to do.  I'm afraid, I'm so angry with myself, and I don't know what to do with any of it.  It gets harder and harder to hold everything up.

Balancing act, redux

I live a dual life, forgoing sleep to be mom by day and me by night.  It seems untenable and yet I am happy, happier than I have been in a long long while.  At home, I play with the kids and listen to songs that wrench my heart.  When out, I let my hair down, play the fool without guilt or fear, and it feels good to be myself.  Home again, home again, and still alone, I don't feel lonely but instead revel in the freedom of doing what I want, when I want.  Is it so awful?  I know there's something broken, something I'm not sure I care to fix.  I don't understand, literally can not relate to people caring about each other in the way I'm supposed to want to, the way I once did.  But I don't feel the lack, I don't yearn any more.  I don't miss it.  I don't want it.

Absence Really Does Make the Heart Grow Fonder

I have never been happier to say goodbye to my kids than I was this morning when I dropped them off at school.  It's been 17 days of snow and sniffles and too much sugar and not enough listening and way way too much fighting.  I came home and lazed decadently around the house.  Paid some bills, took a nap, curled up with several blankets since my ancient house lets in more air than a tent.  It was slightly-boring heaven.  The big surprise was that when the kids came home, only a few hours later, I was absolutely delighted to see them.  It was straight out of an airport scene from Love, Actually.  I felt like it had been years.  They really are amazing little people.  I guess I just haven't had enough distance to see it clearly for a while.

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.

Words can't express the depths of my loathing

I am 10 days away from my physics final, after which I will never have to take another physics class, ever. You'd think that having the end in sight would alleviate some of my chronic hatred for this class/professor/subject, but sadly such is not the case. I have never worked so hard for so little - no sense of satisfaction, no idea what my grade is (because this teacher, among his many other crimes against education, lost all of our homework grades, hasn't graded any labs, and added a few random quizzes that aren't represented in the grade formula in the syllabus). Hate hate hate. I have a test tomorrow, on chapters were were supposed to cover the last week of October but just completed last Tuesday, and which I still don't begin to understand. We will not be covering anything at all about optics, and while god knows I don't want to be responsible for even more information in this awful class, I need to know optics for the MCAT, so it would have been nice to at least see something about it.

I signed up for the MCAT last night - $225 for a sure-to-be miserable experience. It's like spending money on a root canal, or a new tire (oh, yeah, just did that too - stupid flat tire last week). I guess I'd better start putting together my study plan for that. As for now, I have to get back to studying for my craptastic test tomorrow, or there won't be much point in the MCAT.