I've thought a lot over the past few months about writing something just for the sake of writing it. I used to do that, pretty often in fact, but stopped somewhere along the way. Part was to start holding a certain amount of privacy in my life. Part was because I was too lazy to share it. There's always a reason though, isn't there? As to why we do or do not do something? I believe we are preternaturally destined to search for an excuse to shift the blame to something other than ourselves, beyond any sort of determined control. But that's just me.
I waxed poetic at the start of the year, thinking heartbreak was best left in the last decade. That wasn't true. Maybe it was the great cosmic joke of 2020 and the new decade to effectively prove how much "heartbreak" is just part of who I am at my core. That it's what I get... if not deserve... and that I just need to continue learning how to shoulder. It gets really hard to shoulder sometimes, and I'm so embarrassed to admit that.
It's harder to shoulder it when you don't want to go back to therapy to learn new and additional coping mechanisms. It's even harder to shoulder it without turning toward medication. The result is feeling lost and living a life that is based solely on moments. I finished the patio; I sold my house; I visited my best friend in California. It's the spaces between the moments that I find myself wandering around and looking for purpose. A year ago I felt like I had purpose.
Six months and one week ago I felt like I had purpose.
Purpose is only a temporary thing though, right? It's not meant to be permanent... the entire goal of "purpose" is to achieve something. Maybe you do, and that's great. You can then revel in the ensuing sense of accomplishment that comes with it. But if purpose is ripped out from under you, even if you aren't sure/weren't sure/won't be sure of what that purpose was... what do you do? I occupy a space of general uncertainty in my life now, and I can't really put my finger on why that is. What is holding me back? And if not holding me back... what force is holding me down exactly where I am?
2020 has been good for one thing and it has been that it's held a mirror up to all of us and asked that we look deeper into who we are at our core. How will you handle a pandemic? How will you navigate relationships with friends any family? How will you change personally from Black Lives Matter? When will you finally speak up about something that is just plain morally wrong that you've ignored for years? How will you find the pieces of your heart... pick them back up... and then try to hold said pieces together in a shape somewhat vaguely resembling what they once were?
That last one I'm still trying to work out.
Even though I've written about the situation I found myself in this spring, I think back on that quote "everyone has a chapter they don't read out loud." I think about how much I've pulled away from the blogs and writing in large, concealing a big part of who I am as an individual because I'm often uncomfortable in speaking it out loud. But maybe it's time I did give voice to what goes on in my head. Here you go.
It's been a long year and we're just eight months in, and while I'd love to share some glorious gems of introspection as to what I've learned, I'm mostly just a heartbroken person who shuffles through the days, one moment to the next. I'm irritable often and my good-natured mental state collapses at the drop of a dime for certain minor inconveniences. I feel taxed in so many avenues of who I have to be and for whom. I feel jubilant randomly for no apparent cause. I get dizzy as I'm packing the boxes that are slowly building toward the ceiling my dining room, and have to take a break because it feels similar to being car sick. I lose weight and I gain weight. I laugh often and I cry rarely, but when I do cry, it's sometimes harder than I ever have before. I feel alone a lot. Conversely, I feel anyone I want is within reach through a phone call or a text. I am a walking contradiction and I'm complicated and I'm determined and I'm trying to figure out how all of that fits into the cramped space of my skull that is too big to wear most baseball hats. Sometimes I feel like no one wants to listen to me anymore... that they don't want me to bring up failed relationships or sad thoughts or concern over where my life is or isn't going. The year is hard enough with out all of that, right? Other times I feel like should I just speak, I will have an audience. Maybe not the biggest in the world, but one that matters.
Last week I was in California visiting Tina and we went to Rodeo beach, just outside of San Francisco. I snapped a selfie, as I'm prone to do, because I finally felt like I was where I was supposed to be. I had this overwhelming feeling of content that I don't know how to accurately put to words. The problems I've been navigating this year were pushed away, the under-riding sadness wasn't there, and I just felt like everything was going to be okay.
Having the feeling that I had found where I belonged and also knowing it was where I would never be able to afford... it was heartbreaking in its own right.
A few years ago I shared a quote that said "don't look back, you're not going that way." I love it for countless reasons, mostly because the quote itself means that you should have hope. Hope for the future and what wonders it will bring, hope for ease and comfort and love and joy. None of those are particularly exclusive to the other... but any variety would be appreciated. The past though has a way of coming around for me in ways that are often unexpected and sometimes just unwanted.
Like a photo that popped up on Facebook back in July and just about destroyed me when I saw it. Or the memory(s) shared by an ex, while happy in tone, that dredge up a world that ultimately didn't work out and subsequently never will.
It's hard for me to look forward when I have a past that was so good, in so many respects, that it haunts me. No, I'm not looking back... but it's always in my peripherals. Is the answer going to be found in moving to a new house? I don't know. What I do know is that it will give me more projects, which means more time painting and tinkering and doing god knows what while I listen absentmindedly to music and trick myself into thinking I'm all better.
None of this is a cry for help... it's not a plea for anyone to step in and show me the proverbial light. These are the words that have been floating in my head and I've typically found it cathartic to get all of that out to a page in order to process and move forward. Will it work? Search me. But I know it can't hurt.
I'd apologize for the downer of a blog but in the words of Rihanna, "baby, this is what you came for." So for now it's a shower, then bed, then back to work (officially) for the first time in roughly two weeks. Time goes on and wounds mend, thoughts get cleared as the world falls into place. 2020 will probably throw something else horrible before this is all done, but I guess in whatever weird way, it builds character. How else can you look back and say "remember when?"
Ciao for now.
