I have cried just about everyday for the past few weeks. Most folks don’t know this but those closest to me do. It’s not always big moments; it’s often little things that remind me that my time in my beloved city is fleeting. Sometimes it’s really random things like commercials or a cute doggy video. Other times, it is an email from the tenant who is moving into my current place asking me if I’m selling any of my furniture that they can have.
I know that I am a big ball of emotion right now and I really don’t know what to do about it. I try to “just feel it”, I try to use my time productively, and I try to push through. All of the above. And the ball of emotion is still just there. It ain’t going NOWHERE. All summer I’ve been trying to bolster my coping skills and mechanisms because I know my next move is my scariest move.
Before you ask, yes, I have a therapist and I feel like she’s been helpful in teaching me ways to take care of my body so that my body takes care of me, learning to speak differently to myself, stand my ground and in the full ownership of who I really am. Right now, I’m trying to work through some old trauma and heartbreak so I can move forward in getting all that life has for me.
And I’m making progress and moving in all the “right” directions but it doesn’t seem enough for me. Some of the heartbreak that I’m working through is OLD like months and years old. And I wonder, truly, if I will ever get over some of the things that I have experienced. Like is a wound that is healed 80% considered healed? If you’re doing all the things, does that mean that’s just as far as you get with healing?
If I think about it in a different way, I remember the time that my fiance (at the time) and I spent our first Christmas/Kwanzaa holiday together and I sliced my finger open cutting an onion. This was in 2016? I sliced it real good and spent a good hour with my Santa hat on in urgent care to get patched up. 4.5 years later, that finger STILL ain’t completely right. LOL. It took a long time to get the tingly sensation out of it and get feeling back. Yet I know the nerves in that part of my finger must have suffered some permanent damage because when I rub my thumb over it, it still doesn’t feel right and I can still see the line in my skin where I sliced it open.
Is psychological “damage” the same way? Where it gets to a “good enough” stage and then it’s just there? Am I making it worse wishing it would “hurry up” back to what was my normal?
Interestingly too, I’m learning that it takes WAY more work to maintain wellness than it did when I was younger. Some of y’all are like “Well duh” but hear me out. This is beyond just I’m not as thin as I was in my 20s. This is about real wellness. I am literally in the process of developing a wellness routine, including when I eat during the day, what I eat, how and when I exercise, how I reward and discipline myself, how I take care of myself personally from waxing, haircuts and styling, vitamin regimens, and figuring how to balance my body’s pH. I mean even down to the types of clothing I wear during different seasons to deter chafing, yeast infections, heat bumps, dry skin, etc. And I’ve gotten religious about brushing and flossing because that last dental bill was so expensive, I had to pay in installments!
In my twenties, I didn’t have to think this hard about my role and decision-making in my wellness. It just took care of itself. My metabolism was high enough that I didn’t REALLY have to think about what I ate to still fit in my pants. My anxiety wasn’t wearing on me like I feel it does now. I brushed and flossed once a day, and I wore whatever I felt like was cute. Cute was the goal and cute was easy back then. Chile, it is SO MUCH MORE than just trying to be cute now.
The one thing that seems the hardest to build into my routine is quiet time. Rarely do I write without music, fans, a video/podcast playing in the background or something. I don’t know why but it’s really hard to give myself that quiet time. But if I don’t give my mind and body that time, she will force me to take it at 2am when I’d much rather be asleep and if I’m up in the middle of the night, I will be exhausted the next day and thus begins the cycle of no sleep, no exercise, headaches/dehydration, poor eating habits and irritability.
So my therapist recommended that I learn to invite quietness in small doses. Take a shower without noise. Spend a few minutes in deep breathing. Unload the dishwasher in silence. An something that this has automatically forced me to do is consider why I can’t do silence. Why can’t I sit in silence? What am I distracting myself from?
I think I know the answer (at least in part) that I’m trying to avoid crying and thinking about how much I don’t want to move and how scared I am to start this program in the Fall. How worried I am that I won’t be able to cover my bills because of the income drop or that the apartment I leased won’t be what I know I need it to be.
Do you struggle with silence/stillness? Why do you think it’s hard for you? I challenge each of you reading this to take 20 minutes (set a timer) and just be still and quiet. Don’t do anything intentionally and just let your mind go. Where does it go? What happens in that time?
Share below what your experience is!
Comentarios