i sort of came out looking like a ghost in this picture. and that’s okay. because it’s somewhat representative of the conversation that preceded it.
here’s the backstory: i’ve been making those vague social media posts lately about trying and struggling and change that make everyone crazy to read. because you really want either just KNOW what the fuck is going on or have the person keep the entirety of the information to themselves. because a tease amount of information is annoying and too obviously searching for attention. but the thing is I DON'T KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON. all i know is i have spontaneously cried at people's dinner tables and been unable to sleep well due to back/ shoulder/ stomach/ jaw pain and dragged my tired, miserable body half-heartedly through the days and secret eaten an entire box of sour patch kids in a bathroom during work and picked fights over corn. you know, things sane and happy people definitely don't do on a daily basis.
my mom and other loving people will run through the gamut of questions you ask a person, who seems to sort of be losing their mind: are you sleeping okay? are you eating well? have you been exercising? are you getting enough water? are you taking time for yourself? all of which i can answer with vehement YES, YES, YES. (okay, minus the sour patch kids in the bathroom. but for the most part...)
this is the part that's making my brain crazy. i'm doing it "right." for the first time in my life, i am not sitting in a dark room writing angsty poetry and crafting posters made of broken glass and magazine cut out of girls with their eyes whited-out (oh high school). i am not binge eating and binge working and binge drinking myself into oblivion (OH college). i am not going going going out and in and around so strenuously happy and energetic and alive and strong and everywhere that i was utterly exhausted and depleted (oh oh oh my lovely and taxing san francisco).
for once i have a schedule and routines that give me some space to breathe. i eat relatively well, and even when i don't, my deviances are most often homemade ice cream or treats that i can at least control what's going into them. i barely eat anything processed and limit dairy. i go to yoga 1 to 47 times per week, hike around on the weekend, take walks after dinner, and occasionally force myself into the oppressive heat for a run. i go to bed basically as soon as it's dark outside and wake up when it's light. i drink water all day long. when i drink alcohol, it's usually to share a beer, maybe two, with nic. i don't spend very much money, because i don't make very much money and i don't want to be in debt. i snuggle nic at night and in the morning. we make out. we laugh. i take time to write words and draw cartoons and pass my eyes over the words in books and watch a movie and bake treats for people i love and take baths and play cards and write letters and dig my hands in the garden. i just quit my job, because, a year later, i finally accepted i need a school that resonates more with my beliefs. i found a new job at a place that encompasses so many of the things that are important to me, both fundamentally and in regards to early childhood education. i am doing all the things that would indicate my life should be quite happy and content and functional.
so when i'm screaming about a piece of corn and then immediately crying thereafter, and i'm clearly not okay and i tell the people i love, they ask. they ask if i'm doing it. they ask if i'm doing the list of things a person should do to be a normal person and the answer is yes and i feel a voice screaming in my head, I'M DOING IT ALL SO WHY AM I NOT HAPPY?
i feel sure that i am losing my mind. i am checking off the boxes so why am i not happy? why am i not happy why am i not happy why am i not happy? it's pricking at my brain over and over. i can't relax. i should be happy. shouldn't i be happy? i should definitely be happy.
it feels worse to try and "fail" than it does to not be trying at all and chalk it up to life giving me back the same mess i put into it. thus i have been acting like a crazy person. the corn and the sour patch kids and the tears. and most of all the body. my body feels like it's falling apart.
i go to patrick sporadically and in desperation. patrick, my lower back hurts so badly i can't sleep. patrick, the pain in the middle of my shoulder blade that radiates to my shoulder that once led to my neck being immobile for a month is back. patrick, i'm clenching my teeth so badly in the night that it feels like i can't open my mouth. patrick, my body won't digest food and my stomach always hurts and my period blood is weird and brown and snotty. (sorry. i'm gross. but you don't mind, do you? as j fey said, "you bring out the gross in me." hopefully i bring out the gross in you too. hi j fey.)
i went to patrick's house last night, in one of these fits of deciding i needed to fix the perpetually recurring (and multiplying) physical issues that i have. and he finally broke it down. he said things i surely knew before, but i finally heard them.
my personal need to be "healthy" is not about checking off a laundry list of things a human being does to sustain a living body. my body is alive and not littered with totally disgusting things, like many americans' are. my health is reliant upon my working on letting go of the shit. letting go of worrying if things happen exactly how i wanted or expected. letting go of planning on when or how things will happen at all. letting go of obsessive attention and control. accepting ease. learning to flow.
it sounds like such hippie shit. i always resented hippie shit growing up and now i'm constantly accused of being one. i've adopted that lifestyle, but i'm doing it without any ease or grace. i'm doing it like a robot. patrick said i probably do chaturanga like optimus prime. like i'm doing this beautiful, grounding movement that helps you build strength and reset and flow, but i'm doing it like a machine.
where is my grace?
where is my grace?
i have no grace. i am stumbling and shrieking and loud. i am so worried about being graceful and fluid that i allow myself no opportunity to actually be it.
i'm so concerned with the outcome of life that i am not living at all.
i am doing so much living that i'm not living at all.
and it's making me miserable.
so i cried at patrick's dinner table. and then i, so wrongly, decided i was going to make good decisions and be easy and casual. i decided i would fix the problem with more of the problem. and then the next day, which is today, which is now, nic and i went out for a beer and a snack after work. and whatever and whatever happened and i end up mad and storming off again. because i am trying SO HARD TO BE CASUAL THAT I'M NOT CASUAL AT ALL. that i get frustrated when i fail.
we get home and i'm mad about everything. nothing nic is doing is right. he's doing everything wrong and it's his fault. we talk it out until i get to the point that it finally comes out of my mouth that i worry that nothing that i am doing is right. that i feel like i'm trying so fucking hard to make it right and figure out what i need to make life not terrible and i can't find it and it's making me crazy.
and then nic says "your asking what you need IS the problem. just be here. be here with me."
and then i cry. i cry like a child. i throw my torso onto the bed with my legs dangling on the ground and heave crying. because it's the truest thing anyone's said to me. and it felt good to hear those words. they felt like relief. it was the sentence i needed.
i am looking too hard for it. i am looking too hard for the answers, when the answer is: stop looking.
stop looking for answers. stop looking for health. stop looking for happiness. stop looking for what's right. stop looking for the next thing. stop looking. stop looking. stop looking. i need to let my eyes glaze over. i need to stop focusing so hard on the star that i can't see it anymore. i need to look outside it. i need to let my eyes soften. i need to FUCKING RELAX. i need to not even tell myself to relax. i need to not worry if i'm relaxed or happy or okay or right and just be exactly what i am.
i need to be where i am.
patrick told me to make a plan for health. he wouldn't tell me what it should look like. he said there's no wrong plan.
this is my plan: when i'm on the bed, be on the bed. when in the classroom, be in the classroom. when i'm sad, be sad. when i'm crabby, be crabby. when i'm funny, be funny. when i'm ready to leave, leave. when i'm cold, feel the cold. when i'm eating dinner, eat dinner. when i'm writing, write. when i'm sleeping, sleep. when i can't sleep, let myself not sleep. when i'm in the car, be in the car. when i'm anxious, be anxious. when i'm disappointed with myself, be disappointed with myself. when i'm feeling good, feel good.
that's my health plan.
it's not a plan to acquiesce. or relent. or not move forward or grow or change. it's a plan to stop asking for something other than what is, to stop skipping steps, to stop fighting so hard against my experience that my body is literally screaming with pain because of how hard it's trying to satisfy all my needs at once.
it's a plan to be here. it's a plan to be where i am.
start where you are beth. be where you are. that is all and everything and more than i ever needed.
