stretch
I'm such a cliché.
A writer coming off of a long dormant stretch to break the silence after the turning of the season and the start of a new year.
[Cue the resolutions, epiphanies, big words.]
Let's cut to the chase, shall we? I didn't even try to write. For 8+ months. I thought about it, knowing how personally satisfying it can be to pull outside my exhaustion-inducing emotional turmoil and give structure to the chaos. To find the right "angle" that allows me to process my irrational and anxious thoughts with a more rational mind. A focus. A form of therapy without the annoying new age music and astronomical appointment fees.
Then came the guilt. I couldn't find a way to express myself with even a small amount of restraint or ability to reason. The repression of a thousand complex ideas, feelings, societal constructs, personal and professional pressures, all at once. The complete and total inability to find the smallest crevice to hook my line into to keep scaling upward; because it's always supposed to be onward and upward, right?
[Wrong.]
After the guilt, paralysis and ridiculously small amount of daily motivation (limited to getting out of bed, putting one foot in front of another and giving myself a mental and physical shove out the door), then came the pain.And the appalling lack of empathy. Strike that. The "fake" lack of empathy. Because I'm unfurling myself in front of you like a messy murder scene, I'll continue. I say "fake" lack of empathy because I pretended not to care. Intermittent numbness mixed with the futile hope to feel nothing, even while you gloated, celebrated, incited, and cast your judgment. Even when you reached out, tried to make me laugh, told me everything would be alright, and warned me not to fall into that trap. Especially when you responded politely, but lacked the ability to hear me even though you were listening.
[Wait for it…]
Last year, I hit the ceiling. I was ill-equipped to handle so much confrontational, divisive rhetoric spewing out all over the place all the damn time. The callous words and behavior on a daily basis. I am a tough bitch. (No, really.) But if there's one thing you should know about me, it's this: I am ruled by my emotions, and driven by instinct. On any given day for the past three months, I would say that I swung wildly between hope, despair, determination, and futility so many times that when I finally found myself alone, I wanted to curl into a ball and pray for everything to magically correct itself while I rocked myself to sleep.
[Pssst…I don't pray.]
All those shards of glass that I felt falling away for the past decade or so, as I found my footing professionally and as I took more chances personally, they started to disappear. But instead of getting swept up for someone's groovy mosaic table or crushed into gravel, instead someone took Liquid Glass and started puttying them back in place; little by little, day by day. (Yes, you can rebuild it!) Yes, as that glass ceiling started to fill back in, my heart started breaking instead.
[This is where I tell you how much it hurts.]
Here's the thing that's so hard to say and think and feel. I sat on the verge of true and total hopefulness. I was bearing witness to a historically significant and seismic social shift. I dared to imagine a reality that could lessen the pain of being told no, stay in your place. I looked forward, and upward, and my heart skipped a beat and then…Oh. My. God. What. Just. Happened? It was gone. And as much as I tried, I couldn't give a voice to what I felt. Betrayal. Defeat. Loss. It was personal. Because not being seen, heard or considered equally stings harder than most things in this life. And because being who I am means that reminder to know your place (woman!) is ever-present. It pervades everything. It presents itself innocuously enough, until it becomes unsafe, unsavory and violating.
[OMG, what is she going on about? Is she talking about the election? Can't she just get over it?]
It was more than that. And that's what it's all about. I had everything and nothing to say. I cried, yelled, screamed, punched (pillows), and drank wine. I conversed, debated, attempted to speak. But the words. The real ones. The ones I'm writing now…they wouldn't come out of hiding. They crawled inward and wouldn't be heard from until now. Because sometimes you really do have to "fake it 'til you make it". Because sometimes all you can do is wake up, put your feet on the floor and throw yourself on a commuter bus toward the city.
[Where does this story end?]
A writer coming off of a long dormant stretch to break the silence after the turning of the season and the start of a new year.
[Cue the resolutions, epiphanies, big words.]
Let's cut to the chase, shall we? I didn't even try to write. For 8+ months. I thought about it, knowing how personally satisfying it can be to pull outside my exhaustion-inducing emotional turmoil and give structure to the chaos. To find the right "angle" that allows me to process my irrational and anxious thoughts with a more rational mind. A focus. A form of therapy without the annoying new age music and astronomical appointment fees.
Then came the guilt. I couldn't find a way to express myself with even a small amount of restraint or ability to reason. The repression of a thousand complex ideas, feelings, societal constructs, personal and professional pressures, all at once. The complete and total inability to find the smallest crevice to hook my line into to keep scaling upward; because it's always supposed to be onward and upward, right?
[Wrong.]
After the guilt, paralysis and ridiculously small amount of daily motivation (limited to getting out of bed, putting one foot in front of another and giving myself a mental and physical shove out the door), then came the pain.
[Wait for it…]
Last year, I hit the ceiling. I was ill-equipped to handle so much confrontational, divisive rhetoric spewing out all over the place all the damn time. The callous words and behavior on a daily basis. I am a tough bitch. (No, really.) But if there's one thing you should know about me, it's this: I am ruled by my emotions, and driven by instinct. On any given day for the past three months, I would say that I swung wildly between hope, despair, determination, and futility so many times that when I finally found myself alone, I wanted to curl into a ball and pray for everything to magically correct itself while I rocked myself to sleep.
[Pssst…I don't pray.]
All those shards of glass that I felt falling away for the past decade or so, as I found my footing professionally and as I took more chances personally, they started to disappear. But instead of getting swept up for someone's groovy mosaic table or crushed into gravel, instead someone took Liquid Glass and started puttying them back in place; little by little, day by day. (Yes, you can rebuild it!) Yes, as that glass ceiling started to fill back in, my heart started breaking instead.
[This is where I tell you how much it hurts.]
Here's the thing that's so hard to say and think and feel. I sat on the verge of true and total hopefulness. I was bearing witness to a historically significant and seismic social shift. I dared to imagine a reality that could lessen the pain of being told no, stay in your place. I looked forward, and upward, and my heart skipped a beat and then…Oh. My. God. What. Just. Happened? It was gone. And as much as I tried, I couldn't give a voice to what I felt. Betrayal. Defeat. Loss. It was personal. Because not being seen, heard or considered equally stings harder than most things in this life. And because being who I am means that reminder to know your place (woman!) is ever-present. It pervades everything. It presents itself innocuously enough, until it becomes unsafe, unsavory and violating.
[OMG, what is she going on about? Is she talking about the election? Can't she just get over it?]
It was more than that. And that's what it's all about. I had everything and nothing to say. I cried, yelled, screamed, punched (pillows), and drank wine. I conversed, debated, attempted to speak. But the words. The real ones. The ones I'm writing now…they wouldn't come out of hiding. They crawled inward and wouldn't be heard from until now. Because sometimes you really do have to "fake it 'til you make it". Because sometimes all you can do is wake up, put your feet on the floor and throw yourself on a commuter bus toward the city.
[Where does this story end?]
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