This is our last day of a long weekend together. The partner and I have had a good time, relaxed with family, enjoyed great food, worked in the yard and took long naps during the intermittent rain showers. I have no legitimate complaints other than the fact that this is the last week I’ll have unstructured time. Work begins at 8am on the 1st of June, and it’s back to the grind of 9-5 for me again. I should be grateful; having been unceremoniously fired from my job the first week of May, I’ve had a generous month of relaxation and reflection. I’ve been somewhat sloppy with how I’ve used that time, which didn’t seem precious until now. There’s never enough, and I’m not sure why that is when I honestly waste so much on things that probably don’t count in the big scheme of things.
If there is one thing I’d like to change about my life it would be that I’d like to find some sense of urgency—something to drive me along the road a bit further than I choose to wander on my own. In many ways, I tend to do the bare minimum of what is expected at home. I frequently opt for shortcuts in my life, settle for less than my best, opt out of things rather than push for more. I judge myself as lazy, but I wonder if it isn’t truly exhausting to have to constantly monitor and adjust myself to my environment to make room for my emotional responses. I am constantly on watch for signs of returning illness, discombobulated thinking, hair trigger feelings that can set off a firestorm of words and ineffective actions. I don’t want to be that person anymore, the one who walks off a job, ends a relationship or says something she cannot undo. I don’t want to be the nutjob at the center of a scene. I work hard to stay on top of things as they arise and talk them through with trusted partner, friend, or therapist. Sure, I have the chemical assistance of two or three different medications. They help to dull the razor’s edge of my words and behaviors, and allow me to sleep most of the way through the night. Ultimately though, it’s up to me to intercede on my own behalf when things begin to unravel emotionally. That’s something that requires a great deal of thought and energy on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis.
I’ve heard it said that one’s house is a reflection of one’s interior landscape, the contents of one’s head. If that’s the case, I’m in deep trouble. My laundry is a constant, losing battle, and my bathroom is lousy with stray hairs and soap scum. My thoughts range from hopeful and generous to paranoid and self-indulgent. My brain has a ring around it, if you will. I worry about the future and grieve my losses, but try not to get stuck in one thought for too long—an express ticket to crazytown for me. Too much rumination leads to fear and sadness, and inevitably inertia creeps moving up slowly. So it’s all about finding a balance between being here in the present, which is not always flowers and cupcakes, and allowing for past and future thoughts to move through like clouds overhead. This is “non-attachment”. This is full and radical acceptance of myself and my life, with all of its fragrant buds and imperfections and garbage. It’s all part of some greater whole that I seek to understand and embrace.
Along the borderlands 