It’s a Mess. Let it Be.
Last night, my husband asked me how I was feeling, and I named about six different accurate, discrete, and simultaneous emotions I was having. His reaction was something like, “Oh, so it’s a BAD day?” and I didn’t know how to respond….well, I mean, I responded with my usual righteous rage, of course- my go-to reaction to the people I love when they don’t please me entirely (#workinprocess). But the thing was, it wasn’t a bad day or a good day, it was just a day. A complex, mind-fuck of a day. Because that’s all we can expect of the days right now. And that’s OK…and not….but it can’t be easily dropped into a standard scale.
Everything about life is messy and weird and foreign right now…and I’m not hiding from it, I’m sitting in the mess, in the storm, trying to find the eye of it, as a wise mentor recently advised. I don’t want to second-guess every single feeling I have, to run them all through filters and across translators, squeezing them until they’re dry and palatable. I want to just be able to be sad and relieved and scared and cozy and nervous and excited, all together, at once, painting with all the runny, messy colors. Some of it will smudge together and make weird grays and browns. That might not seem especially coordinated or purposeful, but, there…there you have it.
We have been out of work since the start of the pandemic- except for the work that we do for free- our small business and caring for our small children full-time. We’re selling the former and planning to educate the latter. To get work, it will likely mean a move geographically away from what’s been home for the past fifteen years. Yes, we’re facing so much loss and unknown, but we’re also joyously together and keen on a new adventure under a different sun. It’s complicated.
So…sad relieved scared cozy nervous excited. That’s the best I can do.
Also, scared to shaking over the implosion in our country and thrilled beyond measure that we’re doing the hard, scary work, uncovering our eternal dark truths, and maybe, MAYBE finally moving to start fixing some hurts.
In some ways we’re all sick, dead, dying, and also more healthy, alive, and well than ever before?? The blend of imagination and reality, the worries and wants, it’s just a loud, colorful splat. It’s all there. It’s all there.
