Unbored

I was given an assignment. Oddly from my therapist. Yes I have one. I’ve had 2, 3 and once 4 technically. It’s my team. I believe I need a team to be a successful human. I also believe they need me. That if I get “better” what will they do? Who will they look at sideways and quizzically and suggest that maybe you felt this way for a reason, with a little nod. As if it’s both a statement and a question. The first time I went to therapy I said very little. I was asked questions that seemed so personal. It’s what therapy is. Personal. Dirty business.

Then I felt I was over sharing. What’s too much? Can you share too much? Sort of. If you share enough that is deemed harmful they have to break rules and reshare. To protect you from yourself. Other than that, it’s my chance to overshare so I don’t accidentally do it randomly to a stranger in line at the store. Which today is 6 feet away so I would be shouting to make up for the space they have between us so I might as well be sharing with everyone.

Today I over shared with someone. A stranger. I told him about a baby I lost once. That it was not alive. That in my head I named him Nathan. I lost him in the shower after I was told I was losing him. He just fell out of me. Then my mother had to pick him up. My husband not there. Then I had to go to work the next day. I over shared because he did it first. He started it. I blurted out next, my dad died. I just kept going. He didn’t even seem uncomfortable with it. He didn’t stop me and I couldn’t stop myself.

I’m bored.

I told her, my therapist, I was bored. I don’t feel I can access my lack of bored. My ability to entertain myself. She said, in a classic therapist line, “let’s explore this, see where it goes.” She assigned me to explore my thought that I am bored with reality. Is that what it is? She said I seem to use this word to describe an emotion I can’t name. Am I saying I’m tired? Is tired an emotion? Am I sad? Yes. My dad is dead. But am I describingly bored sad. Like bored-sad. Bored slash sad. Am I blessed and bored? what emotion is messing with me in a way that I’m convinced I’m bored? Or am I settled? Calm? Ok? Am I bored because there is a lack of real chaos in my mind. That it is chaotic and also somehow not. I’m accepting the chaos leaving me with voids that feel like boredom because they aren’t full of chaos that is chaotic. Is bored less chaotic?

I wonder off in my imagination so much that right now I can’t. Not just physically but mentally. I can’t leave reality and wonder off. Its probably good for me right now. To ground me. I need to have one foot in the ground right now. If not both. The harsh reality is real and is our reality. There isn’t an escape and it is the realest it’s felt in my whole real life. I can’t climb a tree and escape, I can’t climb warm rocks or wonder through water. I’m not bored. I’m grounded. Which is exactly what I need to be to keep from kiting away too far. I say kiting like a verb. It is when my kite runs out of string and keeps going. It’s not let go so much as it’s being pulled away. It was snatched away and taken too far out. The string gone. Snapped off somewhere and floating away. It couldn’t keep me grounded. I’m kited. Both are words. They just likely mean something other than the action of a kite.

I am supposed to be exploring my boredom. I think it is not wanting to sit with myself. Who wants to? It’s the most painful thing ever to pass the time. I’ve done it. It’s not boring. It’s work. To listen to yourself. To not. To feel the time just ticking. To have to breath for no reason. Just to breath to sit? Who does that? It shouldn’t be so hard that it requires a thought to breath. Yet it is.

Entertaining my boredom? Or am I bored with my entertainment? I’m just a little bored. It could be lack of curiosity as all my outlets to explore are blocked. Or Im bored with the daily topics. The press reaching daily to creat new ways to say the same thing. I’m bored with it. It doesn’t pertain to me as much as they want it to. I can’t seem to care to read about the ramped up tweets from the leader of the free world that is currently in lockdown. Not free. I also am not a tweeter. Or twitter? Or twaut? I like the bird as the symbol that’s it.

I’m bored. If I say it enough I go to lumber. I’m stiff as a board. And bored. If I say it enough I want to find out the first person who was bored. What did they do once they found the word to match their hidden emotion? How did they become unbored? The word I’m sure derives some a hidden meaning all on its own. I would sit on my hands not to explore the rabbit hole of the word bored yet I’m typing so I’m keeping them busy while fighting the urge to open a new browser and browse for meanings of life. I’m bored but not that curious.

I’m going to become more mindful. That’s my goal. It doesn’t make any sense at all. My mind is full. Why would I seek comfort in my mind being full. I would love to know what it is like less. Mindless. Except I get bored from using my mind less. “See my problem?”Therapist number 2. I would love to explore my boredom yet it is boring to not be entertained, but my entertainment is boring.

I’m relieved my kids aren’t returning to school for the year. I would rather make a routine out of no routine than to get back into a routine of a new routine for just a few weeks only to fall into a new routine that would be sort of like the older routine but not. I will keep them bored with me. We can entertain boredom until we get bored.

I found I can come out of a rabbit hole. Twice. Last week I came back from the past and also returned from the future. I stayed in my mind in both places just long enough to torture me but not too long that I couldn’t return. I’m not actually time traveling although it feels like it. I swear I can smell certain things from the past just by thinking them. It’s a far stretch of the imagination but that’s how far imagination takes me. To the place I want. So I’m entertained and not bored. But not stuck dead in a rabbit hole.

I came back and found I couldn’t breath if gone too long. Settled myself back in front of myself and had to catch my breath leaving my chest feeling physically tight. Maybe I needed to see I would be ok. Tip toe a little ahead in time with one foot and see the lessons learned and reasons of maybe from the what if’s that happened. Maybe I went back to see how I and that I survived and found my through. Even if it felt like it was through snarled wild roses and water and terrains of unknowns. But I found the place under the fence that opened up to the path of least resistance. To get to here. The clearer path not necessarily the easier one, the one made for me.

If you were little like me you have squeezed under fences like Peter the rabbit did to get to yummy veggies. I wasn’t going into others gardens(sometimes) but often just leaving land that was fenced to land that wasn’t. Escaping. By crawling under. I rip clothes and skin if I go over. But the feeling of burrowing under in the cool damp soil is entertaining. Then you pop up, dust yourself off a little to look presentable, wipe your sweaty brow to only smear mud on your face and breath in the openness in front. The sun looks and feels brighter and warmer. The wind moves the grass in songs. The air is easier. It’s a ditch of course but behind was rows of corn that scraped my arms to get to the edge to crawl under to find the other side.

Where did that come from? It felt good. To just remember a little of a time life was simple. I could almost feel the sun. I feel a tear forming in my left eye. I sometimes just leak tears from one side. I believe it’s the other side of my brain responding to an emotion. Since the rights side controls the left my right brain side is emotional today. The other side is more logical and controlled. I wipe my left side tear and just feel a little more… less bored today. I am unbored. If bored was my word for an emotion I can’t seem to name properly or describe it’s probably that I’m describing calm. I’m calmer today.