A Moment of Peace…
My days have become a lottery of emotion. I can’t tell how I will feel from one moment to the next. I am steadily working to keep myself present and to keep my thoughts accounted for.
I have a baseline, where I feel okay – there is no unbearable burden, no looming anxiety, and there is no crushing pain. I don’t forget the things that pull me out of “okay mode”, but they are successfully held at bay. I successfully soothe myself enough to feel okay. I can function and I can breathe – I don’t feel suffering – and this is amazing to me. I feel like a new person, looking at the world for the first time, and I just feel wonder. I might even say I feel wonder-ful, because everything looks so fresh and positive.
But then, there are the moments of intense pain or panic or overwhelm that come upon me without warning. These moments come because painful thoughts rise in my mind. The real problem is that the painful thoughts are excruciatingly painful, the “I want to die” kind of painful.
I existed in that pain for most of every day for many years, and I have just recently found my way to the reverse – I can exist out of pain most of the day, but do still have unbearable moments. I start crying when these thoughts surface, and usually have to hide this somehow because it happens at random moments, around other people.
I was taking a walk today, eating as I usually do while walking, and a thought came up. The thought was something like, “My love is useless, unsolicited, and repulsive. I am unwanted. This problem would be solved if I died.”
And, I choked up with tears, then literally choked on a piece of food.
As my body started to fight to breathe, I had the wry thought, “Is this it? Is this how I die, choking on a piece of chicken in a park, surrounded by people who’d not even notice?”
And, then I had such a profound sense of relief. I felt glad I’d die, in such a fittingly humiliating and pointless way. I felt glad everyone would be rid of me, and I felt glad that it would just be over, finally.
But, then my body cleared the obstruction and there I was, no longer choking and still walking along just as if nothing at all had happened. I felt disappointment. I let the tears of sadness and bitterness swell, then ebb. I just kept walking, kept letting tears drop when they came up, finished my food, tossed my trash, turned around to walk back. And that’s it.
I didn’t die in that moment. And my true thought on the matter is, “I didn’t die in that moment, unfortunately.” Because, that moment of peace was very peaceful.
Today, I feel tired. I feel like a nuisance, I feel tired of being upset about inconsequential things, tired of trying not to bore/annoy other people, tired of being stuck, tired of caring, tired of dead end feelings, and tired of being ME. Yet, there’s nobody else to be.
Be me, or be dead. That doesn’t really seem like much of a choice. But, what choice do I have, really? I’m still alive for the moment, so I’ll be alive in the moment.
I am trying to keep up this lighter version of life I’ve discovered, but I do see that I still have a long way to go before I can exist without being pulled down so easily.
I feel okay now, reflecting upon these events. I feel okay, because I see that I can’t avoid these times of pain. It is unpleasant to consider this level of suffering will remain a constant in my life for an unknown length of time, but I can bear most of it if I can stay out of its grasp.
I have nothing hopeful or uplifting to say, no great lesson learned.
I’m alive because I’m not dead.
I want to enjoy being alive, or at least not so welcoming of death.