Showing posts with label anxious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label anxious. Show all posts
September 19, 2013
tomorrow
Ultrasound appointment tomorrow! We are beyond excited. If baby is cooperative I'll be back with a gender update as soon as I get a chance. :)
August 2, 2013
August 30, 2012
June 19, 2012
September 29, 2011
the law of bad things
I hate that good things are so foreign to me it sends my system into shock. Crushing, crushing. Can't breathe. Dangerous scenarios feel natural, feel expected, feel like where I'm supposed to be. This whole year, nothing bad has happened to me, and I feel like I'm running from the law. The Law of Bad Things. Fugitive of horrors, hidden away for now -- but it's only a matter of time.
September 28, 2011
disquiet
On the cusp of great things, and my first flawed instinct is to throw myself backward, toward known miseries, rather than risk flinging myself forward, into I-know-not-what.
April 25, 2011
sweet child of mine
On Saturday some of my customers said "Happy Easter" to me -- most of them in a tone of voice that indicated they were offended that I hadn't said it to them first. (Ignorant bastards.) (Just kidding!) (Not really.)
I just sort of smiled grimly and nodded, because it would be decidedly unprofessional to say, "Fuck you, self-righteous customer with something to celebrate!"
I'm sorry, I'm just not feeling it this year.
----------
Sunday started off all right. A bit of morning banter with my great aunt and her cranky Italian husband, who I love. A little pre-brunch prep. Inspecting the beautiful cherry pies that I had spent four hours making the night before. Hiding some eggs, to be hunted later on.
I had a cheese danish and a coffee (both forbidden luxuries) and some cantelope... and then went back to bed. That part was lovely. I was drowsy from the sugar-crash and had plenty of time before I needed to do anything else. It felt like a holiday. Peaceful. Relaxed. Later, as the house filled with people, my anxiety began to rise; but I was pretty much holding my own. And then.
And then my cousin's idiot boyfriend made a joke about dead babies.
I spent the next 30 minutes bawling my eyes out in my bedroom, getting makeup all over my freshly laundered pillowcases. The worst part about it was knowing that no one was going to come down the hall and sit beside me while I cried. And I couldn't go back out until I was calm again, because I barely knew the 20-some people who were in the house, and I wasn't about to try to explain to them why I was upset. The minutes ticked by, and I felt terrible for isolating, but I didn't know what else to do. Anyone I could talk to about it was busy with family events of their own.
Eventually I had my breathing under control, and could go out and get some food and make small talk as was expected of me, puffy eyed but attempting to smile.
----------
I didn't say "Happy Easter" even once this year. I didn't go to church. I didn't ask anyone if they were doing something special for Sunday. I just plain didn't care.
And I've realized that it bothers me, that I don't care. I've always cared before. But I can't seem to muster a shred of reverence right now, no matter how abstract. I feel so jaded. So angry. So alone.
Supposedly that's who Jesus came for in the first place, though, right? People like me.
----------
I wonder about our traditions sometimes. All the happy-clappy-sunshine, nothing-is-wrong-because-Jesus-is-risen-he-is-risen-indeed. Is that really the only way to remember? It's what I grew up with. Every church service I've been to on Easter Sunday is full of what feels to me like forced optimism. The underlying message being: Somebody died because of you, you horrible person. But it's okay now, because they're alive again. Lucky! That means you're off the hook -- so be happy, damn it!
I don't know, maybe that was just me?
I guess I feel betrayed. I feel like it was all such a sham. Those days when everyone got all excited; sang joyful songs and threw flowers in the air, hugged one another. It was over so quickly. Everything back again to the way it was before. Scary. Unpredictable. Painful.
So Jesus was here, great. But then he left. And now there's just this invisible force wandering around checking up on us, cause Jesus has other things to do.
Ummm?
Yeah; turns out, this is the bulk of the message that I gathered. Awesome. In reading all this over, I think I understand though. I liked Easter before because I felt like some kind of horrible yucky person who deserved bad things to happen to them, and here was this story my church gave me about how it's okay that I'm a bad person because Jesus will help me, thank goodness.
But guess what? I don't think I'm a horrible person anymore. I don't think bad things should happen to me anymore. And I don't think anyone is coming to save me.
----------
Maybe someday I'll believe again that there's a God who cares for me the way a parent should. I want so badly to be somebody's child, deeply loved.
I just sort of smiled grimly and nodded, because it would be decidedly unprofessional to say, "Fuck you, self-righteous customer with something to celebrate!"
I'm sorry, I'm just not feeling it this year.
----------
Sunday started off all right. A bit of morning banter with my great aunt and her cranky Italian husband, who I love. A little pre-brunch prep. Inspecting the beautiful cherry pies that I had spent four hours making the night before. Hiding some eggs, to be hunted later on.
I had a cheese danish and a coffee (both forbidden luxuries) and some cantelope... and then went back to bed. That part was lovely. I was drowsy from the sugar-crash and had plenty of time before I needed to do anything else. It felt like a holiday. Peaceful. Relaxed. Later, as the house filled with people, my anxiety began to rise; but I was pretty much holding my own. And then.
And then my cousin's idiot boyfriend made a joke about dead babies.
I spent the next 30 minutes bawling my eyes out in my bedroom, getting makeup all over my freshly laundered pillowcases. The worst part about it was knowing that no one was going to come down the hall and sit beside me while I cried. And I couldn't go back out until I was calm again, because I barely knew the 20-some people who were in the house, and I wasn't about to try to explain to them why I was upset. The minutes ticked by, and I felt terrible for isolating, but I didn't know what else to do. Anyone I could talk to about it was busy with family events of their own.
Eventually I had my breathing under control, and could go out and get some food and make small talk as was expected of me, puffy eyed but attempting to smile.
----------
I didn't say "Happy Easter" even once this year. I didn't go to church. I didn't ask anyone if they were doing something special for Sunday. I just plain didn't care.
And I've realized that it bothers me, that I don't care. I've always cared before. But I can't seem to muster a shred of reverence right now, no matter how abstract. I feel so jaded. So angry. So alone.
Supposedly that's who Jesus came for in the first place, though, right? People like me.
----------
I wonder about our traditions sometimes. All the happy-clappy-sunshine, nothing-is-wrong-because-Jesus-is-risen-he-is-risen-indeed. Is that really the only way to remember? It's what I grew up with. Every church service I've been to on Easter Sunday is full of what feels to me like forced optimism. The underlying message being: Somebody died because of you, you horrible person. But it's okay now, because they're alive again. Lucky! That means you're off the hook -- so be happy, damn it!
I don't know, maybe that was just me?
I guess I feel betrayed. I feel like it was all such a sham. Those days when everyone got all excited; sang joyful songs and threw flowers in the air, hugged one another. It was over so quickly. Everything back again to the way it was before. Scary. Unpredictable. Painful.
So Jesus was here, great. But then he left. And now there's just this invisible force wandering around checking up on us, cause Jesus has other things to do.
Ummm?
Yeah; turns out, this is the bulk of the message that I gathered. Awesome. In reading all this over, I think I understand though. I liked Easter before because I felt like some kind of horrible yucky person who deserved bad things to happen to them, and here was this story my church gave me about how it's okay that I'm a bad person because Jesus will help me, thank goodness.
But guess what? I don't think I'm a horrible person anymore. I don't think bad things should happen to me anymore. And I don't think anyone is coming to save me.
----------
Maybe someday I'll believe again that there's a God who cares for me the way a parent should. I want so badly to be somebody's child, deeply loved.
March 9, 2011
rambling
It's so hard to know sometimes what I should put up here. I remember when I had no followers, and it felt like it was just me, tossing my words into the ether.
I saw them like handfuls of skelatal leaves, imagined them drifting away and away to I-knew-not-where. I wrote from my woundedness, bleeding in English, onto the lined pages of my journal and across my computer screen. Back when I was falling apart, or maybe just falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, on and on, not knowing when or if I'd ever find the bottom, or rediscover which way was up. But I did; I found the bottom eventually, and to my astonishment there were other people there. People like me, whose worlds were scrambled as snow-globes. Loneliness made me happy to see them. Compassion made me sad. But perhaps the biggest shock of all was discovering how much I'd always been right about, after being told all my life that I was the one who was constantly wrong...
Oh, ruinous land of my mother and father! I shake off your dust from my feet.
----------
I'm trying to move forward, but I still have trouble separating who I was from who I am. I still panic when things take a turn for the better. I still expect to be punished for being alive. But maybe it won't always be this way.
----------
My heart is heavy lately, and so is my mind. I feel like I can barely lift my head sometimes, for the weightiness of my thoughts. Prioritizing is the hardest part of being an adult, I think. Deciding what takes precedence in one's own life, and knowing it is no one else's call. The line between responsibility and perfectionism. The line between laziness and self-care. It's hard for me to see, a lot of the time.
Maybe this is just how it is. Maybe this is life. I can't help wondering, though, how much more difficult certain things are for me, and always will be. There's no way of knowing. Our experiences are ours alone. But I have hope, still, much as it annoys me sometimes: I hope that my life has simply had it's seasons out of order.
I was born into a hundred year's winter, ice and snow and silent malice all around, each day lived as under a curse. A curse that I have broken, now, through sheer force of will. (While breaking curses is all very well, it still takes time for that much frost to melt.) But spring will come, I suppose. Eventually.
I saw them like handfuls of skelatal leaves, imagined them drifting away and away to I-knew-not-where. I wrote from my woundedness, bleeding in English, onto the lined pages of my journal and across my computer screen. Back when I was falling apart, or maybe just falling, like Alice down the rabbit hole, on and on, not knowing when or if I'd ever find the bottom, or rediscover which way was up. But I did; I found the bottom eventually, and to my astonishment there were other people there. People like me, whose worlds were scrambled as snow-globes. Loneliness made me happy to see them. Compassion made me sad. But perhaps the biggest shock of all was discovering how much I'd always been right about, after being told all my life that I was the one who was constantly wrong...
Oh, ruinous land of my mother and father! I shake off your dust from my feet.
----------
I'm trying to move forward, but I still have trouble separating who I was from who I am. I still panic when things take a turn for the better. I still expect to be punished for being alive. But maybe it won't always be this way.
----------
My heart is heavy lately, and so is my mind. I feel like I can barely lift my head sometimes, for the weightiness of my thoughts. Prioritizing is the hardest part of being an adult, I think. Deciding what takes precedence in one's own life, and knowing it is no one else's call. The line between responsibility and perfectionism. The line between laziness and self-care. It's hard for me to see, a lot of the time.
Maybe this is just how it is. Maybe this is life. I can't help wondering, though, how much more difficult certain things are for me, and always will be. There's no way of knowing. Our experiences are ours alone. But I have hope, still, much as it annoys me sometimes: I hope that my life has simply had it's seasons out of order.
I was born into a hundred year's winter, ice and snow and silent malice all around, each day lived as under a curse. A curse that I have broken, now, through sheer force of will. (While breaking curses is all very well, it still takes time for that much frost to melt.) But spring will come, I suppose. Eventually.
December 11, 2010
confused
Yesterday was great, last night was less than great, and today I just want to curl up in a ball and cry. WTF?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)