I have felt like I have been treading water for a while now.
I know I am not alone in this.
The work of keeping our heads above water. Pedaling the bicycle and waving our arms in the water just trying to breathe. No rest, not getting anywhere either. Sometimes we succumb and go under. Then kick and fight just to break the surface again.
I had a therapy appointment this morning.
Feels like a merry-go-round.
I didn’t talk about what I wanted to talk about. But we did have a good ride.
She has asked me to stop using the word ‘need’ and replace it with want. We have discussed mindful breathing, accepting what is and varying other things normal people discuss with therapists.
I understand I have a fear of completing projects because I am afraid the final product will no be good enough, so I just don’t start.
We have worked on working through that.
Be afraid, do it anyways.
Easy to see and say, harder to do.
I remembered that I started this blog for myself and myself only. I was living very alone and having rapid fire epiphanies and I needed to keep track of them. And I wanted to live in Georgia. I wanted to make money writing. I have never monetized the blog. A few attempts have been made and I never followed through.
We had some ideas.
I gotta do something. This nothing and treading water is not cutting it.
I remember getting ready to go to Florida last year.
Felt like a beautiful new beginning.
And it was.
No meat, no booze and a lot of writing and relaxing after I had been doing either too much or neither of those things for 2 years, respectively.
I started writing a book in the Jeep on the way to Disney.
Bad writer, I had no pen or paper, so I wrote it in email drafts to my boyfriend. Safest place I could think to put it.
Cut to January, 7 flights later a few chapters flushed out in airport terminals, at an Airbnb I finished it.
I also uprooted my life, moved back to Hamilton. Spent 5 days in that jeep. Traveled everywhere and kept writing everywhere I went.
The day after my birthday I get my first royalty cheque from sales.
It’s peanuts, but they are my peanuts.
Therapist had me talk through the things I have actually accomplished since lockdown started.
It is hard for me to see them. I just see a sad lonely girl in yesterday’s pajamas, dirty hair, 2 weeks worth of laundry, washed but still sitting in the basket. An unmade bed. A rug that doesn’t match anything else in my room because that stuff isn’t here yet.
I see a caterpillar in goo phase in a messy cocoon.
I have sketches for how to better arrange my room. I have sketches in my head and scribbled notes and 12 open tabs for new books. But I can’t write them. Or that is what I am telling myself.
Focus.
Focus.
Remember the things I did do.
I did attack and clean the hell closet, I did edit the big bad book and send that off for publishing. I did organize my room as it sits now and although it is not perfect, it is pretty good.
I had the kittens for a month and I cleaned up after them and I REALLY cleaned up after they left.
Repaired some damage between myself and my son.
Wrote some blog posts.
20 000 words of the new book that has nothing to do with the other books. I might actually put my real name on this new one.
I kept my plants alive and got some of my old plants back and I have done the bare minimum of existing. I drink a lot of water, take my vitamins, eat very well.
The new new book was started in this incredible influx of muses and inspiration. Then it turned into work. And this is when I get frustrated and avoid or ruin things.
I gotta remember that the first 5000 words were easy and beautiful sure, but the other ¾ were all being stubborn and working at it, slowly.
I think that is a metaphor for a lot of things. Including my life and relationship.
I found the perfect song to encapsulate how I am feeling in this moment.
Slip Slidin’ Away. Good ol’ Paul Simon.
Soundtrack to many, many things.
You know the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip slidin’ away.
Preach it Paul.
I do this and it vexes me, but I don’t know how to stop. I sound like a broken record. I know how the universe works better than most. You plant seeds of wishes and wants and goals, water those seeds with your thoughts and actions and then, usually when you least expect it, they bloom.
So why do I keep slip slidin’ away? Some kind of internal sabotage I suppose. That fear of not being good enough. The decision I made that I had to earn any happiness or love given or it wasn’t valid. Wolf would just call it corrupt data, and it is.
The exact reason I am in therapy. Trying to clear that or at least reroute my brain around it.
The problem is, in this moment, I don’t have a clear picture of what my destination is.
And then there’s this…
He said Dolores, I live in fear, my love for you is so overpowering I am afraid I will disappear.
I did disappear for a bit.
I got caught up in a future that is no longer viable and oh lord did I mourn.
And my love for him is really fucking overpowering.
We just went through what can gently be put as a rough patch. 70 some odd days apart. It was bound to happen. I tried to back off both for myself, to get some clarity and for him so he wasn’t sucked up in the constant tornado that is my thoughts.
I was afraid.
I still am.
But I remembered it’s okay to be afraid.
My therapist has horses. She used the metaphor of getting back on the horse after you get thrown and I chuckled. Remembering my second horseback ride, post car wreck on that huge Percheron cross I had. No saddle, and ya, he dropped me off in a pile of shit. But it didn’t make me scared of him. I was grateful he picked somewhere soft to put me down.
And I remembered the sheer strength of will it took to drive down the same highway my car wreck happened on, to get back and forth the physio I needed to get on that horse or even walk right. It was hard and I did it.
So the lessons I came away with today were, fear will always exist, be afraid and do things anyways.
Life will smash you up and slough you off into piles of shit and you just gotta ride or drive anyways.
Knowing these things and doing these things are different. With all the treading water I have been doing it’s hard to remember how to swim. And honestly…I don’t know which direction to go in. I can’t see the land from where I am.
But I have to pick a direction, pick a horse to ride, do something, anything. Even if it’s wrong or I get thrown.
I have had enough of days where I hit the snooze button and let it ruin my whole day.
So what if I didn’t do a thing yesterday. I can always start again.