I’m spinning in a toilet bowl that isn’t flushing. About relationships. About what I didn’t say, didn’t do, where my voice is throttled or too much or off. When I finally climb to the toilet’s seat, panting and wringing out the waterloggedness, I slip and back in I go.
It’s always relational, this insecure back-alley place I go. I pace there, I mutter, I about-face, and do it again.
What in the heck am I even doing there? I stand perched with binoculars up above. Is this merely a woman out of her mind?
Honestly, yes. That’s my informal, armchair psychologist opinion.
And so, like anything that isn’t working, I should stop it.
But how?
The cardinals are back, atop the shepherd’s hook on which hangs a royal blue mini bird-feeder house. I love when they sit on the house. The contrast of their striking red to the vividness of the blue is a rarity in nature, and is glue for my eyes.
It’s the judgment. I fast-forward through interactions, pause, and say, “Aha! There. You see? You did that wrong.” And after so many thoughts like that, the only takeaway is that, yep, I’m wrong.
Resignation. To my worthlessness, and my overbearingness, and a destitute future—for always—that I’ll be no better than dog droppings.
Now, as I think, and I play the tape from the other angle—“How and where was I right?”—other details become clear. Honesty, genuine care, and a solid footing. I have that too, and yet, in my toilet-bowl times, I lose sight of it.
What a dichotomy, to be extremely secure and insecure.
I like that a hummingbird was next in line on the shepherd’s hook before a buzz over to sip on the feeder. It’s quite a fast-paced little guy. One might even call it anxious. But that wouldn’t be right, would it?
What if there is value to the sped-up, spin-out spots? That my desperation and kicking against it is the real problem. What if all we need to do is roll onto our backs, and with all that water we’re sucking into our lungs, we make a mini fountain and do the backstroke.
It’s all good, right? It has to be.
Love, Jaclynn