“How do I take care of myself while carrying that much?”
On the back patio’s rug, I feel it — a threat. Instability. Like someone is mocking me. Like it’s not okay to feel this way.
Why can’t it be okay to feel unstable?
Have I wobbled off the wobble board into crazy town? You bet I have. I’ve been sucked into it before, its sultry tendrils wrapped around my neck until reality was a paper sliver in a Harry Potter stack of books.
So yes, there’s a threat in instability. In how much I tell others. In how much I let someone in — especially someone who could T-1000 me, fist morphing into a four-foot blade straight through the gut.
I didn’t realize how unstable I’ve been feeling. Maybe because I don’t want to admit it. Because admitting it might mean I’m crazy. And if I’m crazy, then I’m alone.
And I don’t want to be alone.
I forget how loudly the past echoes. A thin, forked tongue inches into my ear canal, hissing itself into the size of the universe, until I — the sane one, the rational one, the cool, calm, collected one — am reduced to a pollen speck.
Part of unburdening is doing exactly what I want to do, when I want to do it. There’s a selfishness to living that way, and sometimes it feels dirty. But in that limbo — toeing the line between what’s expected and what’s true — my goal is to calm the threat within.
I calm and recalibrate through dirt, through keyboard, through long hours of sleep. I commune with nature so deeply that the fear begins to seep off.
If I turn toward love — toward “it’s all truly okay” — toward waking just before sunrise and catching its majestic arm stretch, and at sunset following it past the horizon, honored by its fierce last fireworks before descent — something shifts.
In the organizing. In the hard. In the “I’ll do better tomorrow.” I place my fears and insecurities on the altar and watch them burn. The “I’m better than you.” The “I’m never good enough.” They disintegrate.
And in their place, something rushes back in — love, in all its fullness. And I turn to trust in the next moment as much as this one.
This ride isn’t for the faint of heart. But since we’re riding this bull called life and it’s bound to buck, let’s gear up, do our best to steady ourselves, maybe even tire the old girl out, and make peace with the ride.
Love, Jaclynn
Going On 40 