Screeeeeech!

I'm on a glorious journey but,  my psyche has come to a screeching halt.  I'm standing on the edge of a huge abyss. It is deep and wide. As I look down, I don't see any rocks.  I see water...bright, blue  calm.  A waterfall leads down there.  A huge torrent of liquid that splashes violently below as the rapids flow. How can the water down there look so calm and inviting?

I want to get across and continue my journey.  I can't stand here for ever. 

What do I do?
Do I attempt to jump across the abyss to get to the other side?
Do I jump into the abyss and swim to the other side?  (I'd have to climb back up.)
Do I ride the waterfall down and pray that I make it safely? (I'm not that good a swimmer.)
Do I sprout wings and fly across?

The last option seems the most viable.  The most likely too.  I am not about to try to jump across or down into or ride on a waterfall.
I have written somewhere in my journals before about my psyche coming to a screeching halt.  I usually get scared and try to jumpstart it with something.  A good book, a new activity going to church.  Something to get my creative and thought juices flowing.  But all of that activity is born out of anxiety.
Born out of the fear that time is outrunning me.  I always put on my nikes and get back in the race. 
Trying to outrun the inevitable has always made me collapse from exhaustion.
You just can't out run the inevitablities in life. So, you just live life. And wait. 
What are the inevitabilities? Hmmmm.  I gotta think that one through.
I don't like it when my psyche gets clogged up with so much stuff that I am too tired or frustrated or anxious or sad to think.  I feel numb and dumb. I don't have the energy to go out and save the world like I'm 'sposed to because I am too busy looking after myself.

I am then required to turn my attention my self and my own well being.  I used to get so frightened when I had these extended brain farts that I would run around in desparation trying to get out of these periods of stagnancy. Then I'd run so far and so long that I'd tumble off of a cliff and smash onto the rocks. Then I'd regenerate myself and patch myself up and find away to do it all over again...like it was fun.
When I act of desparation, I end up doing the same things over and over again and garnering temporary relief.  My thought process is like an internal boomerang. It comes back and hits me in the head. Whammo! It knocks me senseless and I'm off running, time behind me tryna catch up--so I've deluded myself into thinking...

Psyche...screeching...grinding halt. The noise in my head is necessary noise. But, I don't want to hear it. It's valuable information that I don't want to receive at this time.  It is tell me that I am past due to change my modus operandi.  It's like changing your pin number on your debit card.
I shiver.

I Don't Want to Blog Anymore

I don't want to blog anymore.  But, I think I'm addicted to it and plus, I like reading other peoples blogs and hope that one day someone will like reading mine.  I woke up very sad today.  I went to Virginia last week to visit a friend and the trip was not as enjoyable as I would have liked.  That's life.  My little son is going to Virginia next week with his dad.  That makes me sad too.  He'll be back though.

 I am tired and fed up and ranting...don't ya just love to rant sometimes?

(I don't even know what I'm tired and fed up with).

Am I confused or what?

I have a song in my heart...a story in my mind. God knows what else is at hand.

A bill collector called me and informed me that I was being sued today.  That's okay...I'll just counter sue. 

I am upset about many things today:

The fact that I may not be going to Martha's Vineyard. 
The fact that Daddy is in the hospital and I have not gone to visit him yet.
The fact that I rarely hear from my family unless they want something.
The fact that I haven't written one damned story yet.
The fact that mother is not here.
That Lois is gone, that I got to know Joan too late.
That we no longer go to Nana's on Thanksgiving, Christmas, Labor Day or Easter.
That we don't go to Aunt Mae's on those holidays either.
That I don't understand life better.
That life doesn't seem to agree with me.
That the sky is not paisley purple, shocking blue and hot pink.

I feel absent.  Have you ever felt absent? Like you exist but aren't here?

The Rush

Okay...I thought that it was sugar alone that made me rush.  I haven't really been eating much sugar and I am still speeding ahead...in my head.  It is an awful feeling when you don't understand it.  When you understand it, it's just plain annoying.  So, I have to slow my thoughts down enough so that I can focus on one thing at a time.  That's hard.  I don't really want to focus on one thing at a time...that is harder.

I know that I need to focus on one thing at a time...or I will get nothing done.  Now there's an incentive.

I'm not sure what causes this speeding.  I know that I feel very uncomfortable and frightened at these times.  I feel like if I don't get everything done yesterday that I will be abducted by little green men and taken to some unfamiliar place...never to be seen again. (Just kidding). Actually, being in this state takes me someplace unfamiliar everytime.

I feel like a tornado and I just can't stop.  It is a subtley angry feeling.  Like a rage inside that is hidden.  I think that when I take my eyes off of myself, it kind of takes on a life of it's own and I have trouble controlling it.  I have physical symptoms, like my heart races and I feel tired and tense.  It's weird.  I'm not sure what triggered this rushing thing.

I think that the rushing must be an effort to get to a place of comfort rather than stay in the moment.  I'm able to stay in the moment as long as I don't have a lot of sugar.  I am able to accept the discomfort.  I just don't like it.  I am able to stop and start where I am at.  It's easier than before... But still  hard.

I feel estranged from myself when I rush.  Like everything is surreal and I'm floating around in a bubble like Glenda the Good Witch.  Except my bubble never lands or pops.  Well it didn't before.  And when it didn't I would panic and go bouncing all over the place.  But, I can just go with it for now.

And see where it takes me...

The Me I Never Knew

I wanted to avoid blogging or journaling at all costs today.  This morning I awakened with that familiar anxiety staring me in the face. I could never identify what the source of my anxiety was in the past.  I'd try to quell it with all sorts of activities, food, books, books and more books.  But, this morning it came to me when I opened my eyes staring into abject space, balled up in a fetal position that my anxiety stems from always choosing between my own welfare and someone else's. During my lifetime, someone else's welfare has always won out.

You would think that with this discovery would come a freeing of the mind and body...a free-wheeling joyfulness.  But, when this revelation came to me..guess what?  I became even more anxious.  I really didn't know what to do with the information.  So, I began to look for a tranquilizer to calm myself down. (Some of my anxiety may have also been due to the fact that my daughter called me to tell me that her little brother had been abducted.  Which turned out to be false.  Actually it was her uncle in Africa...which still didn't help the situation). I found the tranquilizer which made the anxiety worse still initially and then I curled up in a fetal position and went back to sleep for a couple of hours.  (I really wanted to sleep for a couple of days straight, but I didn't think that that was a good idea.).

You would think that this information would be particularly sobering.  It is in a way.  But, I think that this knowledge also brings with it the prospect of a responsibility that I have run away from my entire life.  The responsibility to take care of myself.  I have always looked for others to take care of me.  To give me the care that I never felt that I had during my childhood.  I was taught that I was selfish for wanting anything and that I should always put the needs of others before myself.  I have lived with that fallacy of mind all my life and all of sudden...while reading Codependent No More (for the second time in my life) I realize that I have been abandoning myself all these years.

I am stil a little anxious because I think for the longest that I have doubted my ability to care for myself.  I still have some doubts but I have to start.  I keep wanting to catch up to all the stuff that I've left undone within myself and out for that past 53 years.  I don't know if I will ever "catch up".  I don't even know what I mean by " catching up".  I know that I have more work to do and that I will do it at a slow and steady pace.  Buy, I will keep going. 

As I learn more about myself, I am learning to appreciate life.  The journey becomes more and more interesting each day.  I vow to take it one day at a time.


I

Who Is You?

As I drove my young son to school this morning, it came to me that my self-image is terribly dependent on my perception of what others perceive about me. I never intended to put the "c" in crazy, but there it is.  How do you build a solid self-image on what you think someone knows about you?

You don't.

So here is where I really start getting to know myself.  Really.

Anxiety is the mainstay of my psychological diet.  I hate it it.  I want it to go away and get rid of it.  It is a monster that is generated and fed by lies and lifelong guessing games that stem from a poor self-image.  I don't know how I have survived all of these years like that.  My poor mom.  She was anxious 100 percent of the time. Anxiety is a real energy depleter.

I've played Jedi mind tricks on myself and other people.  I have found it extremely difficult to look at life and face it on life's terms.  Some say that life is a bitch.  I wouldn't go that far. No more Jedi mind tricks. But, I think that they are a habit that I have to break. It's like I've been walking around all of my life peeking through my fingers because I was really afraid to look at anything at all.

The "i" in insane. 

As the illusions about myself and the world peel away slowly and then again more  quickly sometimes than I thought they would I brace myself.  It is so much easier to seek out truths about other people places and things than it is to face the truth about myself.

I'm not a bad person.  I've just been nuts all my life.  I'm not sure how I managed to function all these years with such a distorted view of myself and the world at large.

I Am Still (A Little)

I am still- a little.  I can be still if I want to at will.  I have to focus on myself and forget everyone else. Focus is the key word here.  Anxiety comes when I think about what everyone else needs or how I want the world to be or I enumerate my troubles and worries.  When I think about needing to lose weight or how I'm going to try to fix the upstairs air conditioner or when I think about how diabolical and hateful people are.  When I realize that I cannot eat all of the sugar or drink all of the coffee that I want or can't travel  he world over or keep my house clean.  Or when I realize that God want's me all to himself...

That last one really scares me (Better he than the devil).

More than anything else, when I realize how far away I am from being who I want to be. Well maybe I'm exaggerating- probably not that far.  (I'm a little depressed today I guess, but I can be still).  I don't have to jiggle all over the place emotionally or try to solve all of my problems today, or trying to adjust myself to someone else's liking.( am I a sucker or what)?  ( I do need to go to the pharmacy and pick up some medication that I should have picked up a few days ago though).  It's not like I don't have resources.  I have people knocking at my door asking me to work... but I don't want to.  So, what do I want to do?

Be still.

Still?

I'm growing impatient with this stillness project. It shows, though, how little control that we as human beings have...over anything.  I can be still...make a decision, not to decide.  Hold everything in my life that's external in cue...but it's the internal stillness that I crave.  The quiet peacefulness, that allows me to see the world through the Creators eyes, not just my own and to get closer to God.  Why do I want this?

Because I know that my own efforts to guide and live my life are inadequate and inefficient.  Storms in my life don't just come, I tend to unwittingly create them.  Some peoples storms just happen, like when someone gets sick or robbed or someone's house burns down, but I tend to orchestrate mine. The disorder in my life...all the way round.  The conflict with wanting to change careers (actually that is an unexpected storm).  The marriages that I didn't have or thought I had. I have often struggled to control the events in my life. Only to find that the more I try to control, the further control of my life seems to spiral out of reach.

Right now,  today is the worst that I can remember my life being.  My finances, my house, my job, my lack of career satisfaction.  I say that I want to be happy...but what is happiness...really?  I have to be still.  Because, if I keep moving, the mountain of chaos that is my life will come tumbling down on me, crushing and smothering me in it's ruins.

Anxiety begins to greet me each morning staring at me with this big grin on it's face.  It reminds me of that song by Billy Holiday "Good Morning Heartache". Except I don't invite it to sit down...I try to ignore it until it disappears.

I will wait for stillness.  I will wait...In order to wait though I have to increase my capacity to be patient). I thought of stillness as a place to hide at first but it is not a place to hide, it is a place to become visible. (Not sure I understand that paradox).I have experienced small episodes of stillness within the past couple of days, (minutes and even seconds) and I think I know what heaven is like.  But, I have to wait for this gift.  It's difficult but what else can I do?

Except be still. Externally still until...