#10: a peculiar place
routines, this is unusual, the missing dessert, and no more systems
Hello.
While I wobble around on one foot, putting on my left sock, and then my right, I take this opportunity to check in with the park happenings.
This park presses up against the backyard of our house, and because we have a chainlink fence, we can see into the lives of those that have made this expanse of green, scattered with tables under leafless trees, a part of their routine.
There’s the man in headphones that walks quickly and whistles an unrecognizable tune. There’s the woman, likely in her mid 60’s, that wears a puffy vest, drives a white Subaru, and moves in sync with her scruffy poodle/terrier mix. There are the 3 women who walk shoulder to shoulder, their medical badges swaying from around their necks as they, with much animation, chat about work-related drama. And then, there is the old woman in the wheelchair. I’m especially attached to her and her two identical little black dogs that weave side to side as she presses onward, head bent forward and ears tucked inside her hat. She didn’t show up today. This worries me.
I’ve just spent the past week in the most judgmental and critical part of my brain. Even though this place is cold and damp and dark, and very hard to find your way out of, it doesn’t leave me feeling numb or sad. Here, I’m not afraid of my emotions, just annoyed.
The whole thing is unusual, and as I sit here in my fleece jacket, admiring the ever-growing stack of books on my windowsill, I sense that the me that was stuck in that cold, damp place, has found a way out, and now that she’s making her way out, I take note: I feel ok. I am not depressed. I was just somewhere else, obsessing over something else, like anyone else would do. The place I was wasn’t painful or unbearably numb. It just was a place I went to overthink or worry about things outside of my control. But the whole time I was there, I was safe in my mind and I felt ok. And eventually, I was able to stand up straighter and straighter, without the usual suspects tugging at my sleeves.
When I bend forward, the row of books sends up a distinct smell. It’s a smell I love. It’s a smell I bury my face in. It’s a smell I romanticize. It’s a smell that reminds me of how I haven’t wanted to write, or rather, how I haven’t had any idea what to say, which makes me realize how accustomed I am to writing in chaos. This in between place leaves me wordless. All I want to do is read my book and carry on with my day, no longer dwelling in the under-workings of my moods and emotions. It’s entirely foreign, and so I dig: what am I suppose to figure out? Is there anything to figure out? Surely, there must be something that needs fixing? I mean, I can’t just be ok, something must be wrong, right?
Now, this is not me saying that I have resolved all of my issues and no longer have anything to say about anything. This is me putting the spread next to the bread, and the glasses next to the sparkling water, while looking for the missing dessert. This is me setting up the picnic so we can then devour the contents, only to find out that the chocolate wasn’t missing after all. That it had been hiding under a corner of the checkered blanket. But for that brief moment, I was fueled by panic: something is wrong! The chocolate is missing! Let’s fix this! But now that nothing is wrong and nothing is missing, what do I do? Share with you a perfectly enjoyable picnic scene where nothing goes wrong and everyone gets a piece of chocolate? Who has interest in that? Or have I over-thought this whole “everything is fine” conundrum?
As I press the soles of my feet away from my legs, stretching them out over the length of the couch, toes spreading as the light pulls itself out of the room, I watch as the last of it drips out from underneath the pillowed-branches of the evergreen tree, pausing even longer to admire the color and the softness and the way they float up and down like a feather falling to the ground. I love this tree. I could write about this tree every week. The way it tucks itself inside my mind like a neatly folded piece of paper; this is a feeling I can look back on. A reminder that moments like this don’t need to be anything more than what they are.
I’m reaching for the missing thing. For the messy parts. I want something to piece back together through my words on this page and my heart beating vigorously in my chest: you must say this! You must say this other wise that’ll mean that you’re fine. And what happens when you’re fine? I don’t know. I wish I did, but nothing comes to mind.
Now, I know exactly what I’m doing: I’m telling myself that the only thing worth saying is that of the messes made. The moments where I am falling a part slowly and dramatically. Because from this slowness, I can paint scenes of what goes on inside my head. These scenes can be helpful, but if I’m not careful, they can also be suffocating. They make all other words feel small. They make these words feel small.
The blankets are stacked neatly in the corner and my book sits on the coffee table with the cover floating slightly above the pages. It must be from all the reading and the quiet and the slowness that I’ve carved out of hurried thoughts and high expectations. This isn’t usual for me. Most days, I spend whatever spare moments I have worrying about what I didn’t do or haven’t accomplished. Now, I’m not in a rush to get anywhere. I marvel at this. Again, how peculiar it is that I can sit and read and not move around with angst. That I can feel an emotion without the fear of it getting lodged somewhere inside of me, only revealing itself after copious amounts of wrestling and uncovering. That I can trust where I am without questioning the way I interact with the world around me: you should get out and socialize more, I would tell myself. You should make more friends. What are you so afraid of? Look at everyone else, they’re starting businesses and having meetings in coffee shops and wearing cute clothes!
It’s too late. I’ve already smudged the painting and turned over the can of paintbrushes, smearing the paint on the walls and wiping it on my clothes. I decided that I didn’t want things to be how they always were: full of expectations. Full of let downs. Full of moments where I wasn’t comfortable being myself. It’s always there: a restlessness in my mind and me standing there, ready to jump on the next thing that’s slightly out of place, just so I can mold it into something else. But I can also feel myself wanting to stay here, on the couch, where my book is propped up, the painting hangs slightly off kilter, and my expectations are momentarily suspended.
There is that fear. The fear of overstaying my welcome. Of being too comfortable for too long. I say this knowing full well that my mood could dip low or swing high at any moment. That the safety of medication doesn’t prevent me from continuing to experience the unpredictable ways that my mind works. That while I want one thing, it will likely be another. That while the world slows and I slow with it, I will keep turning left and right and left and right, looking for something that I can grab ahold of. Something that I can launch myself from. Something that will stir things up.
I’m not quite ok with things being ok. I know this is true because I attach myself to my ideas and my expectations and my motivations, using them as a way to measure my worth. I have been telling myself that to get to where I want to go, I have to be moving. Always moving. That I must stay vigilant. That I must create systems, and that I must never stray from these systems. That it’s the systems that keep me safe.
The systems never kept me safe, and no matter what I did, I would always end up sprawled out on the floor, with everything that was suppose to be keeping me together, in chaos around me. So maybe this begs another question: was I putting more trust in these things and these systems, than I was in myself? So much so that when something went wrong (and it always did), I would put the blame elsewhere? Never pausing long enough to think that maybe it’s not about tweaking the systems and routines until they’re perfected, that maybe it’s about me believing that it’s safe to act outside of the lines I’ve drawn for myself. That I don’t have to go through the same steps every single day. That I don’t have to have so many rules for myself. That I can move at my own pace.
I say all of this knowing full well that I will likely continue to dissect myself, and from the corner of my eye, always looking for the painting that’s hung slightly off kilter. There isn’t anything wrong with this, I just want to be aware of it is all; partaking in such excavations could lead me to believe that without my chaos, I have nothing worth saying. And I just don’t think that’s true. For me, or for anyone.
Love,
Chloe
PS. my mood has dipped ever so slightly since I wrote this. It’s not bad, just something worth noting; a reminder that no matter what you do, things will change. This morning, I tried to fight off the sleepiness and the sadness and the irritability, but it was never going to work, and so I cried a little, squeezed my hands into fists, broke down, and in turn, broke the timeline that I had given myself. Now, I have but one goal for the rest of the day: to be kind to myself, especially when I don’t want to be.
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