I thought I wanted to write. When I woke I woke from sleep so hard I was certain I died. I did not feel suffocated just certain I was dead. My legs were numb and I couldn’t feel them. Either from sleep so hard my spine crushed a nerve that left no feeling or I walked so much in a day I wore them out and they had to sleep more than me.
I woke with the desire to be at the river. I love the woods and in a mood I need it but I’m worn out from thinking even thinking of needing it in a way I need it. Which means I do. But the river….
I am naturally drawn to water. I am also unnaturally drawn to it. I seek water out when I’ve lost my way. When in doubt look for water, or low spots where land snakes lower, it drains to something my dad said. It goes to somewhere. I’ve gotten out of more land adventures by finding and following water or drainage ditches than I have not. It may be the longest way out but it has proven a way either out or back to. Often trails intentionally lead to river side walking and I have ran back into the trail or a trail while walking just along the river myself while accidentally being drawn to it. Or intentionally needing it. I can hear it. If I hear it I steer myself or myself gets steered to find it. I am not distracted by shiny objects. I am distracted by sounds. In a less than anxious time I will listen to it and stay put. Not just water but any noises. If I am too loud myself I wonder off to find the source of the noises. Especially if it is a babbling brook or trickling of water falling from rocks that I can’t see but can hear and I don’t want to hear me. Then I go. Off the trail to find the noise. I go off the task to find what’s clicking. Off task to see what I hear so I can see it. Everything must operate smoothly or I might disassemble it to find the source of its pain. Of mine. That door knob is just too loud. Why? The fan is too loud. The clicking of the key pad. Chewing gum. I’m sure there is a word for people who don’t like noises. It is not that I don’t like them it is that they are too noisy. I get it. I shouldn’t be so loud and leaky with all my noise too. I should take myself apart and find out why. Why? Why I am so loud today that I have to yell at others. Not yell but use an outside voice when an inside voice is what is needed but an inside voice is too soft for me to hear myself. While I also have all this chaos and then add a squeaky fan from not being balanced. I am not balanced?
I have to check in with myself today. That’s what I’m going to call it. My therapist says it a lot. I don’t always hear what she says. The last appointment was interrupted by my phone lighting up next to me with too many messages from someone who won’t get that I can’t think of him I am busy thinking of me. I also don’t want to explain it. He took the first time too hard. Too personal. My need for space made him need to know what about him made me need space. I need space from myself not from you I said in my loud head to myself but not to him. Who would get that? It doesn’t matter. I get it. That’s what matters. I matter. I don’t think he doesn’t but he can’t matter to me if I don’t to him or that he doesn’t get that I do to me first. That’s the red flag I saw waiving it’s red at me from the very first message. It said think of me not you. Then I will make you think that if you think of me I will you. But that’s not that works. I fell for it once. Fell for too long. No one makes me think of them. I think of others more than I should the way it is all on my own. I have to work harder than some to make myself listen to myself because I am often too loud to hear even me. So I have to check in. At the river. So I can see what is so loud by seeing what is so loud. I also know what it is but I can’t get it to resolve on my own.
I need the river one last time before it’s too cold to put my feet in it to splash water on my tears. To let it wrap me up in its little wiggle around the hills. That sounded so silly. Can’t we get wrapped up in rivers. I can. Not physically. Unless of course I fall from my boat and am actually wrapped up in tangled branches. But this is a rhetorical? Metaphorical? Wrap. But it’s literally a wrap. In my head I can make it feel like it’s wrapping me up and taking me to where? No where or to out and back to. Even if I just sit on the edge and watch the water. Listen to it if I can. I will have to shut myself off by closing my eyes and trying so hard to hear just the river. So I can feel it so I can feel me again.
The loss of my father put me in a place I have to resolve again. This place I felt someone was required to be with me or I won’t get through it. It may have been true at the time too. I may have needed that for the time and I may need it again. I suspect I will struggle with his loss for some time. And I will keep making up ways to cope without making it be that someone else should do it for me. Because they can’t. No one is going to resolve my grief. But me. And the river. River resolve is what I use the river for. Not the same way as the woods. My father was a river man. He lived to be on the water. He drove us across states to be on rivers. It would be no wander I wonder to the river for resolve.
I thought I was done. I am not. I’m never done. I wondered the house to gather my things to go river resolving and keep thinking of the river itself. All of them. I have literally distracted myself from my task at hand by distracting myself from the task at hand. I feel I can’t leave Until the entire house is picked up and my pillows look firm and not squished on my new sofa. Everything needs to be in place before I come back from putting everything back in place.
I could take someone. Can you really show someone self care by inviting them on your own time for self care? Can you really show people self care if in the moment your thought is on sharing your self care? Can you be in the moment and share it at the same time?
I didn’t grow up around big beautiful rapid moving rivers snaking through roaring mountains. In fact it’s the opposite. I grew up with every river in the Midwest surrounded by roaring corn and soybean fields my dad could get us to. The closest thing to what he really desires and several times even took us to what he really loved. The fast moving beautiful rapids of rivers roaring through mountains. So I grew up watching the desire for these rivers. Surrounded by soybeans and corn but not mountains.
Someday my kids will do this. Not all of them I suspect but two out of the four I feel are paying attention to me. The other two are but not in the same way. They don’t share the passion I share with my dad. The desire to explore. I can’t take them with me since they leave on weekends and one I can’t take with me right now until I get what I need first. I’m teaching him that he should be first for himself by teaching him I am for me right now. And he gets it. Then one day we will go and he will get to see why. In time. Same as my dad did with me. In time. I will take you down that river some day. Or someday you will take yourself down that river. In time.
No more distracted river resolving I have real river resolving to do.
Aspenleaf 