I've been in a strange place mentally for the past two weeks. A cranky, funky sort of place. Where I can feel tears pushing against my eyes and have to fight to breathe. Where my patience with the human race is razor thin. I don't like existing in that place.
It is bad when you know the reasons that put you there and cannot articulate. It is bad when the options you normally have to relieve the stress of feeling are not available.
J and I are going to the Cape on Wednesday night, which should give me a much needed break from living inside my head. I'm looking forward to the quiet of the Cape. I'm looking forward to walking on the beach, drinking a lot of red wine, cooking some (out of season) lobster, reading and painting.
I hope to come back as myself on Tuesday.
Oh, but it's in there, all right, and sooner or later it'll find eloquent expression. Here's hoping its inevitable emergence is verbal, peaceful and graceful. You deserve a break today.
ReplyDeleteOne memorable night when I was 17 I was getting nicely plastered at a friend's apartment, and somehow during that night I managed to get a splinter of metal in my finger that took over a year to work its way out -- I'd forgotten about it until it poked out in Chem 101 one day. I'd gotten so used to it being in there that after a while, I wasn't really noticing the pain much, and my body built defenses around it. But out it came, a second wound from a stupid little shard of metal. Some mental, spiritual and emotional shrapnel is like that too, emerging from the mind and the soul only gradually and from among accumlated layers of scarring and self-defense.
Can I offer a suggestion? Work yourself to exhaustion at something that makes your mind go blank other than with the attention to doing the physical stuff correctly. I've found the best way to cope with these sorts of funks, and to open the channels and understand things a little better, is to exert myself and get really, really tired. I do my best praying when I'm gasping.
Peace, kiddo.
Sorry to hear you are feeling out of sorts . . . a trip to the Cape sounds like just the thing to help you snap out of the funk. Rest and have fun and come back when you're ready!
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