you know those times when you can't even figure out anymore what it is that is making you sad? or those nights when it feels like you slept at most a half hour at a time, waking each time confused by that jumbled, eery version of a dream? and then the morning- the morning that no doubt brings cloudy skies and a heavy weight on your chest, reassuring you there will be no joy in this day.
so, in my attempt to zone out and distance this unhappy self i have awoken to, i go on facebook. incredulously, i find post after post by seemingly happy people, contented with their life, going on as if everything is just peachy. how can they be in the same world as me? don't they know nothing is good, nothing is happy, no one is content? the most disorienting is new pictures of my friends and i at a recent reunion in ca. i am smiling. i look happy. and then there are the people who i know are going through rough times. some mention it briefly, only to be followed by a shockingly positive response, and some don't mention it at all. am i just a wallow-er? is this rather unusual? i don't want to be the person that draws out her pain and refuses to stand up and move on until i have spent a sufficiently long enough time feeling sorry for myself and encouraging everyone else to join in. i am hesitant to really post this because this sounds so dramatic and self-pitying, but i have confidence you all understand this is just one moment in time, and apparently it's especially in these moments that i need to write.
it really is a frightening feeling to live in. the thought of returning to iowa city makes me physically sick. the friends i so recently hugged for the first time in a long, long time, i also hugged goodbye for a while now. that little 21-month-old with such curiosity, such happiness, such interest, such wisdom, such love for all things outdoors will soon again forget my face and our fun times playing together. i hope he doesn't forget how much i love him, even from far away. i love groups of friends, and i love those first few moments of contentedness when everyone is back together, but sometimes big groups are hard for me. i find that i can't really talk to people in big groups- at least, not very well, and not everyone. so, then, i wait for a good moment, but when there are lots of people, for lots of the time (and the time i speak of is limited), well then, sometimes that time doesn't come. and you have to say goodbye before you are ready. quite honestly, i'm never really ready to hug these beautiful people goodbye.
these thoughts, among others, crowded my mind as my plane lifted out of santa ana, ca, turned around over the ocean for one last glimpse of the pacific and then headed east. east to brown, barren land that is unseasonably warm, yet still blowing a chilling wind. i have lots to read for my class this week. i have a report to write. i have to go back to work- i have to feel rather useless, powerless, worried about my hours and like i am never doing quite the right thing. i have to heal and recover from this obnoxious cold. at this point in the list i am realizing the lie i have written- i do not "have" to do anything. but these are the things i have been doing, tend to do, and am afraid i will continue to do. and, because this is what i do when things get overwhelming and i don't know what to do, i need to read. read. read a lot. the wisdom of people encourages me- reminds me of the wisdom in our world, and of the chance that quite possibly, that wisdom lies in me, too.
this was hard for me to write. who knows if what i have said makes sense, and who knows if any of these stated reasons are really what brought me into this downward slide. i never feel like i am getting it quite right, and then starting to worry that "all these people" who read my blog will get the wrong idea. but, i've decided to trust you all in your various interpretations of this and just go with it.
mary pipher writes,
"Darkness and loss signal to us more clearly than anything else that it is time to expand our point of view."
so, here's to expanding. when i'm ready. 2012, you have your hands full already.
