I may rely too much on the planets and the universe to explain the absolute chaos inside of me, or maybe that’s all I have.
Either way, this week has been turbulent. As if someone took my brain out and shook it and threw it back in, everything feels really off.
I’ve buried myself in work to avoid these unpleasant feelings, but I may have gone too far today.
After spending 7 hours in front of the computer with no breaks, I threw on some shoes and just started driving. My mind thought junk food, but then I envisioned my acupuncturist looking at me with the disappointing mom look when reviewing my food journal and that scares me, so I headed to the health food store. Chocolate bar, veggie fried rice, and coconut water in hand, I went to check out and met Lindsey.
An innocuous question of “How’s your day been?” led me to talk about the weather.
”It’s summer!”
”Yeah we didn’t get a spring!”
”Ugh right? This May should’ve been March!”
Lindsey paused and looked at me thoughtfully. It doesn’t feel like that happens often.
”You know, the weather is just getting more uncomfortable, isn’t it?”
We talked like old friends and she took her time, even as another person had joined the line behind me.
I took my rice to the airport and watched planes take off. They climb so abruptly to get over the mountain range and there is a moment before they disappear behind the mountains that feels scary, risky, uncertain. I find myself holding my breath, staring them each down until I’m certain they are safely in the sky.
Sometimes I think that’s all I’m doing in this season of my life: holding my breath until I can identify a safe place to land. And sometimes I feel like I’ve been holding my breath for years, grieving the life I used to thrive in, revisiting the spaces that used to give me a firm sense of home, understanding, that now feel so foreign, it’s hard to remember what it used to feel like to belong.
Maybe it’s the universe, maybe it’s the ongoing pandemic, maybe it’s my constant toxic trait of always feeling misunderstood and like I’m the only person in the world that feels this deeply, thinks this much, pays attention. Maybe it’s not enough art and too much reality TV. Maybe it’s not enough vitamin D or yoga or friends chatting idly on my couch. Maybe it’s everything.
Back to Lindsey. Before I left the market, she said,
”I’m a doula so I deal with women giving birth! And we talk all the time about life in centimeters. 8-10. We have to get to 8-10 but it’s uncomfortable to wait to get there, and it’s uncomfortable when we are there. And isn’t that like being human?”
I teared up. She looked at me and smiled. I waved goodbye and walked to my car and thought about the uncomfortable space it takes to bring life into the world, the weight of waiting for it to get here and the pain of it being in progress. I think about how absolutely heartbreakingly beautiful it is to be a mom and how absolutely heartbreaking it is to be a mom: the moments I never want to end and the moments I can’t wait to be done with forever. This holding on and letting go over and over again.
And I don’t know what else to do but hold my breath and watch the planes make it over the mountain.