A wind tunnel spins around me, thoughts like dollar bills spinning and I grab at them, but they’re off. It’s hard to catch just one thought and pin it down. One more succinct thought was about moving, and the vacancy that’ll exist in a once-filled space. Is it the cavern behind my eye, the sunken skull spot, or is it the spot behind my rib cage? I sense an absence there, a bottomless black hole stripping, unlike anything I’ve ever known.
I’m caring for Dave post-surgery. Even with three two-inch incisions just below his navel equidistant apart, he’s doing well. After two glasses of juice, buttered bread, and a homemade yet restaurant-caliber soup of carrot, celery, rotisserie chicken, mushroom, and parsley he’s resting comfortably in bed. Instead of getting celery seed as expected in the soup, a shake of garam masala fell in, a mistake from a previous meal in needing to give a spice a home. For our taste buds, the pinch of cumin, clove, nutmeg, cardamom, and anise blend was as difficult to spot as Waldo in his books. But we knew. And you know how being in the know is, it’s just better.
Describing my inner world is a trip, like a heavy drug trip, out of control, sometimes too much, yet something to do. Where are the words? Where is what I actually want to say? I’m putting out sentences for the sake of sentences, and not for the sake of anything else.
What does sake mean? The entire first page of search results shows the Japanese drink, and that’s not at all what I was looking for. But I’m also not into too much work right now.
Finding words is like doing a 5,000-piece puzzle and clicking in that first border piece with the one next to it. It is very dang satisfying. For some reason, I’m resistant. Is there a more precise word than resistant because I’m resistant to the word resistant. I’m incorrigible. Is that something I can consider myself or is it something other people consider me to be? Unruly. A synonym is unruly and that is not how I feel. Shut down is closer. Pulling back or reluctant is another. I like reluctant. That fits.
And it’s this reluctance that when I put it up to my eyes to look out of, I see nothing but mayhem and disaster. How I’m failing to be the mom I want to be, the friend, and the daughter. I’m an okay wife, and that’s only because Dave can’t do things on his own. He needs me. I don’t have a choice. And even though that’s reluctance talking, it sure does sound awful to hear myself say that aloud.
Being a human is hard. What helps is listening to the churn of the dishwasher, releasing the expectations I have on myself, tuning into the frogs, and remembering all the people who love me and that I love.
For some reason, a newer client came to mind, and how much they LOVE coming to counseling. It’s their time. Away from the hustle and expectations, and imagining their big, opened eyes, their legs bent behind them on the couch across from me just feels good.
I’m going to listen to more house sounds.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 