I can’t recognize calm yet. I live an anxious life in my head. Full of chaos. The quieter I am the more chaotic I am. I have to talk loud to talk over my own self. So the louder I am the more chaos I have. It’s both. My leaky thoughts spill over and I have to yell to make sure I’m heard. Then be quiet to try to hear myself. Then occasionally. I can hear. But it is like hearing for the first time might feel after not. Because it is like that. For one day the birds were singing and not annoying, for a day the hum of the vents were soothing. I could hear them. For a day I heard my stomach growling. Then ate. For a day I was able to give clear directions, solve simple difficult problems. Yes both simple and difficult. The simple task of finding the problem and the difficult task of solving it. For a day I think I was un-anxious. Not loud. Not leaky.
Then I became angry I wasn’t sure. Then angry I couldn’t get anxious. Then angry I was angry at not being anxious and not understanding not anxious. Anxiety has a vicious cycle that is more difficult to manage than the difficult task of managing the actual anxiety. It’s when I’m not. My anxious mind gets anxious not being anxious. So not anxious is unrecognizable since it can only last a few. Maybe even minutes. Sometimes it’s just a simple good breath that I think. Good one. It didn’t feel like the last. Just the simple one needed to get to the next not the last one before the end. I told my sister I thought my dads last breath looked peaceful. That I imagine he felt comfort that he knew it was coming and that they weren’t struggled breaths at the end. That they were a balloon slowly losing air. Not painful. Not like he was trying to keep breathing but he wasn’t trying at all anymore. The relief he probably felt was probably, just that. Relief. I held my breath while he took his last ones. I didn’t want to breath and accidentally give him more a feel he needed a reason to keep breathing. I wanted it to be quiet so he didn’t hear anything but himself. I wanted it to be quiet so I could hear him let go. Hear his relief.
Living is very hard. It is hard to keep breathing when we are so uncertain of the next one. By we I mean we not just me. I know we all struggle with a form of anxiety. How can we not. The calmest most centered people I know are calm and centered from being not calm and not centered once. They got it down? They can get not anxious. They have self control. Not control of anything but themselves. They have mastered learning to trust themselves and thé universe to take care of them. They manifested the kind of life they want and they got it. But they make me anxious. Because I feel them trying to stay not anxious. They likely feel me trying but not there yet. I don’t know what others feel when around me. My tandem skydiver said he didn’t know for sure what I was feeling. That he didn’t know if screaming was excited or scared. If tears were happy or sad. That I felt very deeply. I said it’s all of them. Then fell out of his plane.
I gave myself a day to be ok with being ok. To be ok with just listening to myself for a day. No matter what I said. Grant me some grace to be me. Anxious or not. That for a day I was less anxious by being ok with being anxious about not being anxious.
See the vicious cycle. Early in the day the birds chirping sounded like a song for me. I could listen to music. By the end of the day I was annoyed when a bird wouldn’t chirp when I heard it then it didn’t do it again. Annoyed with my music playing. I was starting to get noisy again. I am struggling with meeting people and trying to not so I don’t have to. But want to but can’t and don’t know how. I want companionship. Not again but for the first time. I don’t recognize what I crave and crave it at the same time. How can I crave something I’ve never known? How can I manifest? Who is listening when I’m not?
I recognize unhealthy. I attracted people then was able to say, hey this feels weird. Not right and really something I’ve already dealt with and grown through. It feels comfy. It feels so comfy I know it’s wrong. Out of my comfort zone is what I am looking for. Not even looking for but I am trying to manifest this thought into the universe so it presents itself back to me in a form I don’t recognize. So I can say to myself when I’m having a day to listen to myself. This, this feeling. It’s so new it has to be the right one.
Manifest is the word of the day. It is not clear to me but I found it attached to a saying about manifesting my desires into the universe then they will what? Be manifested? Who is listening?
Aspenleaf 