Putting it out there

My will goes out like a pulse into the universe. It doesn’t matter if anyone ever reads this. It’s my will emanating out, influencing others, manifesting my own reality and affecting that of others.

I am adjusting my peptides. My cells are adjusting their receptors. I am slowly moving away from re-creating my miserable anxiety-ridden marriage. I am moving away from trying to predict the future, to game the reactions of others, to control response and emotion.

More hours than not I am feeling that hugeness and it is indescribably beautiful in ways that seem corny to me, the unsentimental, the stripped down, the writer to whom everything is “material.”

That positivity, that connection.  When anxiety about the future happens, I search for that connection and it’s so much easier to find now that I know my body is adjusting to the new pattern.

a thousand beautiful things

Being alone provides interesting challenges.

When I was married I never felt more alone. More lost. More at sea. More curled up on my side of the bed. More disregarded. More frozen from the inside out. There aren’t good words for that feeling yet. I remember it. But I can’t go there, not yet. Can’t write it. It’s enough to be done with it, and to know I never have to be there again, never accept it for years on end just to prove I could stay married.

I come home to an empty house one evening every week and every time I think about what it means to come home alone. To walk into a home where no demands are made on me. No one is hungry. No one needs help with long division or an art project. No one needs me to read to them. Oh, evidence of need is all around me. The morning mess of breakfast dishes. Rice Krispies slow dance in a bowl of water. The box of Ziploc bags on the counter. But no one is here, right now, asking for anything. How many times did I covet this as a young mother? Countless.

While I was going through the divorce, sitting in this apartment I had carefully composed from thin air, this place I was supposed to feel an escape from the pressure in, all I felt was panic. I can now identify it as such. A thick black hole of not knowing. I felt: who will love me now? Who will care for me? Who will fill this hole?

It wasn’t until after the divorce was final that I knew who needed to do those things: me. This is something we always know but some of us find a way to avoid accomplishing. I found so many ways. I never lived alone. I took care of my mother. I took care of my father.

I failed to protect and care for my brother. Failed to stop my mother from crying herself to sleep for years. Failed to fix my father, no matter how much compassion I had.

Maybe along the way I lost faith in my ability to do those things for me. I did those things for others to prove I could, to fix the past,  and denied that I needed anything.

Such a lot of effort to deny fear of failure and the work I needed to do.

The other day, after experiencing ridiculous success at something I didn’t know I could do, I laid down on my favorite rug. My son, who had been sick for two days, came in and laid down with me. He rested his head on my chest and I held him, like I always do. I said you know what? He said, what? I said, my life is really full and really amazing. He probably rolled his eyes.

Full of a thousand beautiful things I can give to myself every single minute of every single day.

watch the dip

I wake at 3 am. I think about not drinking wine any more. I think about not drinking anything any more. I wonder if it’s making my face bloat or break out. I wonder if it’s making me lazy.

I don’t drink the way I did when I was married. When I was married, mid-week hangovers were routine. Wobbling home was routine. Getting in the car when I shouldn’t have was routine. With my kids.

There. I said it. Seems unconscionable now. Back then it was simply the way I was even though I knew full well it was an unbelievably stupid thing to do. Alcohol was quickly becoming my coping mechanism. My mother says all the time – she didn’t recognize me. Didn’t know who I was. I didn’t either. It was all caving in, crashing down. All of my plans for a perfect little life. I couldn’t force it to happen anymore.

My commitment problem. Committing to things that don’t work just to prove I can.

As I woke up tonight, I watched my mind dip into that place that will take my gut to the place of panic. I feel the back of my brain buzz. I don’t know what that buzzing is. I just know I need to pay attention when it happens.

It’s really a mild panic now, more of an anxiety. Who will love me? I am alone in the middle of a Saturday night. Who will care for me?

The answer is clear, the universe fairly rings with it, it vibrates all around me.

I have to give that to myself. How, I ask?

No answer. On that one, universe is silent. Not a good partner. Or maybe the best.

Recently I have been waking with that feeling already in my gut, as though I were dreaming of the anxiety already, as though I were the only human left on earth already and had to deal with myself and couldn’t. This time was really different. I woke and then watched my mind begin in that place of fear, and felt the fear move down to my gut. But it wasn’t a cold stone, more of a tide this time.

And in the awareness, the feeling dissipated. I smiled. Flopped over in my bed. Taking up the whole thing.

When I was married sleeping in my bed brought home the gulf between my husband and myself. There were so many nights I was so much more alone than I am now. Even on the few nights we would have sex. Those were actually worse. It brought home what I didn’t feel, and I would pretend. Always pretend. Feeling as though that was part of the deal. Part of what marriage is.

It makes me sad. I really loved him. So much. For a long time. And I fight with the idea that it was a mistake. I have two beautiful children, sure. I walked away with more than most people get to leave with. But I fight with the notion that my love itself was a mistake. I fight with the feeling that I don’t know how to love. I do battle with the sadness of having love just slip away like that, and whether or not that will always happen. Whether or not, in the end, it’s me who can’t really love.

But why fight? What’s the point of fighting? It’s over. You have learned. Maybe not everything you need to. But a lot. And you are recognizable again. You are you. In all of your imperfect beauty.

And that may be the purpose of the universe’s non-answer. It may not be that you are afraid of being alone. You are afraid you don’t know how to love.