In conclusion

Can I write about being calm in an anxious way?

Can you be in the midst of a storm and feel…not the storm your in the midst of? Not stormy? Feel a sense of calm surrounded by chaos.

I’ve come to some conclusions about myself. Weird things that needed concluded. You can’t come to these without first having a conclue. No not conclue, without unresolve. No, a problem. The word for what a conclusion brought you from is a problem, like a word problem. In conclusion….I __________. Fill in the blank. I don’t even remember what these things were. My conclusions I came to seem to have come from no real problems. No real word problems to be concluded.

Earlier today I thought I had come to some big resolution of who I am. Now I think I just worked myself in a circle. Which is coming to a conclusion in itself.

In conclusion I renounce the decision to have thought I found a conclusion.

I retract.

I found a day of peace and quiet. A day that I felt unbored and no desire to unground. No desire to entertain any thoughts to distract me from the feet on the ground moving me forward. The breath I remembered to take when I stopped to pause. I busied myself like a bee. My job demands it. Especially now as so many turn to plants for therapy. I’m a therapist.

You know that saying gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get tomatoes. I’m the supplier. I’m the place. Im the one with the hours to see people through. I don’t have my own garden so I garden the shit out of everyone’s else’s gardens. We will garden through this!! It’s my own bandwagon to jump on. I’m carrying many followers in my wagon, with no bands, because we have the plants to make the tomatoes.

In conclusion I am a therapist.

Once, I stopped and cried. In a private place. Then stopped. Not caring my face showed it. I want to wear my grief out on my sleeve like I do my fear. So I can see it to get through it.

In conclusion I’m wearing grief today like a badge of honor. I lost someone special and there is no reason to hide this.

Once I swore I heard my dad talk. He was a loud talker. Like me. Our inside voice only knows an outside voice volume. Our outside voice is very quiet. I feel like I need to be heard in closed places with buildings and people noise. Which includes my own noise I creat. When outside I want to be quiet so I can listen to so much more. I heard the birds today. They didn’t annoy me. I was able to listen long enough to block out everything but them. They were singing to me.

In conclusion I can listen, if I’m quiet enough to let birds sing to me. Just me. I am also just louder than most. To be heard.

This voice wasn’t my dad, he is dead. It was a man that on first glance looked so much like him I nearly ran to him to embrace him in the middle of a social distancing nightmare. I restrained myself. I knew it wasn’t him. I also wouldn’t have ran to my dad in a warm embrace under normal circumstances. Just under imaginary ones where I embrace a stranger we aren’t allowed to be within 6feet of. I would have used my inside outside voice so he knew I was close. So he heard me. My eyes were tearing up. Both sides. Both my sides of my brain were struggling to make this stranger not be him or be him. He looked at me and stared. I apologized and said he looked like someone. He said he must have been someone so special to cause the look he was given. I wonder what he saw? Was it pain? Or love? Or both?

In conclusion they are one and the same.

My conclusion was that I made myself believe I was calm and not bored by circling all the way through it. Just to get through today. In conclusion I need to come to the conclusion I can be ok with being ok or not, each day by looping through strange scenarios and stories to come to a conclusion that feels like a neat and tidy way to feel…concluded. It’s ridiculous.

I want to wake up and feel_______?fill in the blank.

I don’t know what I want to feel when I wake. Not just awake. How do you describe awake? Not asleep? Alive? Up but tired? Up but not tired? Vertical? Horizontal? Concluded?

I want conclusions so I can move on. With answers. Even if it’s a fairy tale story to get me through 9 hours. I’m reaching deep down daily to do this. Really reaching. So far I’m digging in the ground under fences to come to another side that I prefer the view ahead over what I came from, and even enjoyed the wiggle in the earth to get to it. It’s a little tale of two minds. One that feels bored from lack of being engaged and the other firmly with a tight grip with one foot on the ground of reality. As this side is engaged. I work with two sides that often can’t cooperate without proper conclusion. I story to include them both. Both the what if? and then what the f***? one side is logical and a bit forward and the other in never never land.

I tend to constantly stay out of the logical side. I’m right brained. I always wonder if you are extremely creative and don’t use as much of the left side does this cause more movement to each side those sides control of the body? Like if I am dominant right brained does my left side get used more? I’m right handed? Is that not associated? No. That makes no sense. But if I’m more creative than logical wouldn’t my left side that’s being ran by my right side be over worked? And vice versa.

If I don’t sit around and do math word problems and make conclusions from logical thinking wouldn’t one side of my body lag behind? Are we supposed to think of this? Exercise the sides of the brain? Not just the brain? Why don’t I know this? My dad always said to do math in my head. Simple math. I do. When anxious. Not in ways you would think but just adding license plates or road numbers. Driving makes me anxious. So I do math while I’m driving. Is this distracted driving or exercising the part of my brain that a good driver benefits from exercising?

I could hear the explanation now.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention when I hit the mailbox, I was doing math in my head. You know, adding or subtracting or multiplying the posted speed limit signs to try and make the number match the time on the dash, sometimes I have to divide the radio station numbers and add them in, it depends.”

“I’m exercising my logic and strategy to be a more controlled and defensive driver”

“No,I haven’t been drinking.”

“No, I wasn’t on my phone.”

“I’m trying to find a simple conclusion. So I can keep moving forward. My right brain needs engaged I have concluded. My foot in reality is coming loose. I conclude. Is it the left one or right one? Which ones driving today?”