Unstable, at best.  Maybe a little manic.

I spent part of the evening last night buried in the center of my bed crying on the phone with my incredibly supportive best friend who so desperately wanted to help me figure out why I was feeling so alone and why the tears wouldn’t stop and why I felt like it was so hard to breathe; why I felt like I was flying and falling all at the same time–maybe those two feelings aren’t so different.  I feel like there’s a hole in my chest–right there at the bottom of my sternum it rests–a big hollow void.  My friend reminded me of the positives and assured me I wasn’t alone.  And eventually I went to sleep.

This morning, I woke up to snow dumping from the still-dark sky to find that I’m lost in the questions.  I took them to the treadmill thinking maybe each heavy step of that run would quiet them, but in the middle of the songs blaring from my iPod I kept wondering…Who am I?  What is causing this crevice in the center of my being?  What does it all mean?  Why am I so fucking sad? Am I going to be able to get through this day without tears?…every mile seemed to take an eternity.  I was, not surprisingly, left without answers.

2011 was a year of discovery for me.  It was emotional and empowering and frightening and freeing and confusing.  A year of running mile after mile after mile and of travel and discovering new places and expanding the way I think.  A year when I felt things freely–recklessly almost.  I learned a lot about myself and what I am capable of.   I learned about being graceful and also about being grateful for a very understanding and accepting group of friends and family. And now at the beginning of 2012, I find myself being caught in the questions.  What does all of this mean?  What do I really want and what’s that going to look like? And, damnit, why can’t it just be easy?

I know, you’re going to tell me to take it a day at a time–to just live and quit thinking so much about it.  But I can’t.  It’s nearly paralyzing me.  I’m in emotional quicksand.  I cannot stand this place.  I cannot stand the person I am reduced to here.  I’ve been here before, and I know I’ll come out of it.  But being in the throes of it is, simply put, disorienting.

I hope, at the beginning of 2013, I’m remembering 2012 as the year when I became whole.  Not perfect, or anything close to it, but whole.  The year I spent putting the pieces where they needed to go and was honest with myself and with others.  Where I brought the positive energy in and left the negative behind.  I’m sure I’ll hit this quicksand again.  Likely more than once.  But I’m determined that this will not define me.  I am more than this.

It’s a beautiful thing, this changing of the seasons.  First obvious with a look west, the gold starts high in those Aspens and creeps its way, slowly, down from those hills until finally catching the leaves on the streets and my block in this city.  Rolling over all of us, leaves begin to fall.  Swaying gracefully more than falling, actually.  I sit, encumbered, the weight of wonder heavy on my chest.

The past couple of days, my mind has been clouded in wonder of whether my time here in this city might be coming to an end.  Wondering if I am living the life I am truly mean to live and if I’m living one that I’ll be proud to have owned someday.  Is it time for something new? Can I continue to ignore that feeling inside of me, that nomadic soul, that wants to pack it all up and move on…to explore another place, another city, another life, another definition of home.

“Just go.”  That’s what my friend said. ”You do it in pencil, it doesn’t have to be forever.”

What am I waiting for?

I’m not sure.

Where do I head next?

I’m not sure.

Maybe this feeling will pass;  perhaps it’s just the hangover of my recent trip to Germany still holding on; the one that left me with such excitement, such an infectious hope of being able to explore another world…a little time, a nap and a little time–that should do the trick…and then, maybe, I’ll find myself content again.  After all, I have spent the last two and a half years here, carefully crafting and placing the pieces of this life I truly do love; inserting these people one by one–creating distance where needed and pulling the others close.   It’s a craft, and I know this one isn’t complete and so why would I want to leave it?

Will I ever find a place I want to be forever?

Or maybe a life of whimsy without roots is an existence I am meant to live?

Maybe living a connected existence doesn’t have to mean staying in the same place…at least maybe it doesn’t have to mean that for me.

Must go sharpen my pencil…

She didn’t actually expect it would work out with him, but she certainly did hope.  Everyone around her is getting engaged, getting married, getting pregnant, getting houses and getting dogs.  The pressure to be “getting” something is purely self-inflicted and sometimes great.  And with that expectation comes hope.  Hope to be doing the same.  To be experiencing the same stages of life with her great friends–sharing those experiences, those memories, spending them together.

But it didn’t work with him.  And it hadn’t worked with the others before him.  And after he came to their table while she sat having sushi with her girlfriends, that gal who was usually strong and steadfast; her fortitude, usually incapable of wavering, in this instance, failed her.

Shaken.  She ate with her eyes focused on the table.  Her best girlfriends looking on, waiting for a response, an expression of the reaction she should provide.  She struggled, silently, to pick up another piece of spicy tuna roll with wobbly chopsticks.

Now, at home, she sits, tears streaming for reasons inexplicable and pooling in that crevice of her collarbone, a salty residue on her pink, splotchy cheeks.

Something is missing, obviously.  But the void, it wasn’t him…

I think the worst part of Anxiety is that she’s a total ninja little bitch–you’re just standing there, having a conversation over a chunk of Kit Kat, and she sneaks right up on you and BOOM.  Before you even know she’s standing there, she’s kicked you behind the knees and you’ve ended up on the ground. 

And then she leaves you with nothing but that army of cracked-out little butterflies that she’s instructed to nest right at the bottom of your sternum, and they’re darting around flapping their wings way too fast…they don’t even flutter, really, those butterflies, they buzz.  Maybe they’re actually more like bees?  Actually, I imagine them to look a little like this:

All I really know is that I want them to go away.

The episode waiting for me was the one where Carrie turns 35, and Samantha organizes her birthday dinner with friends, but no one shows up and Carrie ends up paying for her own birthday cake that she drops on the street and the construction workers yell at her and then goes home alone all depressed…you remember that one, right?

The whole episode is about growing older and being alone and actively trying to handle these things with grace and dignity. 

And as I listened, I was struck, because just today I had the same conversation the SATC gals have, but with a friend of my own.  Sure, I’m 26, not 35, but we hadn’t spoken in a while and she’d asked if I was seeing anyone.  I told her that yes, I am, but it’s not really serious and so I don’t know where it’s going.  She said, “don’t worry–some day you’ll meet “the one” and get married.”  And I said exactly what Miranda said in this episode, “Maybe…maybe not.”  And I meant it!

I would be beyond the moon if I ended up madly in love and married with a few kids and a dog and a couple Volvos.  That would be lovely. I mean it.  I would drive my kids to soccer games and start buying peanut butter and jelly.

But the thing is, I really think I’d also be happy if I ended up by myself, exploring my interests, putting energy into my friendships and other relationships and into keeping this damned plant alive–just liking the life I lead alone. 

Yet for some reason, I feel like everytime I express this, I have to argue my point–like it’s not enough to say that just maybe I’ll end up happy 20 years from now even if I’m not married.  Is that really too asinine to consider?

I’m only 26.  I know I could be married by now–many of the people I grew up with are.  I could have those kids and the dog and the family and I could be married to my high school sweetheart, and maybe that would have worked out fine, but that’s not the life I’m living.  Part of me wonders what I would be doing if it were; how many kids would I have, where would I be living, what would I be doing at this very moment, would I still love him like I did when we were kids?  And part of me thinks I’d love that life, too.

But then I realize I wouldn’t be sitting here in this little apartment, with a glass of white in hand, laptop in lap, typing away with the breeze filling the apartment and the ding of text messages from that boy I’m not even close to wanting to be married to coming through on that pixelated screen.  Because, you see, even though I think that I could love that life, that’s not the life I’m currently loving.

I’m feeling hopeful and anxious and vulnerable and loved and at home and on the verge of a lot of change and I want to be able to chronicle this time of my life–this period–these last six months of this interesting year.  I think it’s pretty great–this life I’ve got– I want to adequately describe how I’m living it with a fluid-like smoothness and precision so I am able to look back in a month or a year or a decade and know exactly what I was thinking and exactly how I felt–good, bad, ugly, happy, nervous, uncertain. 

I think I stopped writing because The Words became ellusive.  They began to creep away from me at the times I used to find the most inspiration–in times of triumph, misfortune, sadness, after a glass of wine–these used to be the times when I couldn’t get these ten little digits to shut up.  Now, in these times…silence.

For a while I was frustrated.

I wondered how these little dudes who used to be such a good friend of mine could disappear on me without warning, without even saying they’d miss me.  Without even leaving a damned note telling me where they’d gone and when I could expect them back.  My expectations of The Words were far too high, obviously.  And after being frustrated for long enough–after countless drafts in the folder of this blog that I’d dubbed absolute shit–after days and nights of words that I couldn’t string together with any real meaning, I gave up.  I quit looking for The Words.

Which is why, as I attempt to bring The Words back into my daily life, my expectations are incredibly low.  Like, barely above my toes. 

So don’t get your hopes up.

It could be ugly.

But it will, if nothing else, be.

Ice-age heat wave, can’t complain.
If the world’s at large, why should I remain?
Walked away to another plan.
Gonna find another place, maybe one I can stand.
I move on to another day, to a whole new town with a whole new way.
Went to the porch to have a thought.
Got to the door and again, I couldn’t stop.
You don’t know where and you don’t know when.
But you still got your words and you got your friends.
Walk along to another day.
Work a little harder, work another way.

Well uh-uh baby I ain’t got no plan.
We’ll float on maybe would you understand?
Gonna float on maybe would you understand?
Well I’ll float on maybe would you understand?

The days get shorter and the nights get cold.
I like the autumn but this place is getting old.
I pack up my belongings and I head for the coast.
It might not be a lot but I feel like I’m making the most.
The day’s get longer and the nights smell green.
I guess it’s not surprising but it’s spring and I should leave.

I like songs about drifters – books about the same.
They both seem to make me feel a little less insane.
Walked on off to another spot.
I still haven’t got anywhere that I want.
Did I want love? Did I need to know?
Why does it always feel like I’m caught in an undertow?

The moths beat themselves to death against the lights.
Adding their breeze to the summer nights.
Outside, water like air was great.
I didn’t know what I had that day.
Walk a little farther to another plan.
You said that you did, but you didn’t understand.

I know that starting over is not what life’s all about.
But my thoughts were so loud, I couldn’t hear my mouth.
My thoughts were so loud, I couldn’t hear my mouth.
My thoughts were so loud.

The one that makes me feel like the pressure in my rapidly beating chest is eventually going to cause my heart to explode and leave the inside of my ribcage littered with everything I might have held dear; or the one that makes me feel like that little gremlin who lives burrowed deep in my chest has reached his skinny little arm up my neck and grabbed ahold of windpipe but his fingers are a little weak so I can still breathe, but just barely.  That’s how the avalanche feels.

And it took my light.  You know, the light that makes people enjoy being around you, the one that makes them laugh.  Instead, I feel like this force field of negative energy and when people don’t want to continue a conversation as they normally would, I can hardly blame them.  Becuase I hate it when people act like I’ve been acting and I’m usually the person who does the walking away lest I become sucked into that negative quicksand.  It’s contagious, you know, negativity.  Last night, I took it to the treadmill and tried to run out of it and I think I made headway because I am feeling a little better today, but not entirely back.

I am not this person.

I’ve got to shake this.

Image found here

The others aren’t quite so tangible, I mean, I guess they’re kindof tangible, but the training schedule, well, it looks a bit different….figuring out what I want to do…graduate school or not…Colorado or somewhere else…you or not you….you. 

It’s funny, I find that I can push the topic far, far away during the rest of the year, but in the few days surrounding the start of this new year, I find myself inundated with thoughts about what I hope to accomplish, what I want for these next 12 months…how this yellow brick road should look…and, ultimately, what I hope I have left behind with our friend, 2010.  I’ll be 26 this year, peeps (holy shit).  For some reason, I’m not sure I’m exactly where I’d hoped to be when I got here, but I’m also not exactly sure what I hoped it would look like otherwise…

Consuming.  Focusing on this is absolutely consuming my thoughts.

Image found : here

My dear friend stared across the table from me at dinner and said something to the affect of, “I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I really think you need to think twice about how much time you spend there–it’s not normal, you should consider your options, maybe do something else. Life is too short, you know, and I feel like with the four years I’ve got on you, I can tell you that and you should listen.”  Quietly,  she followed up, “why *do* you do it?”

Without a second thought, I responded quickly, honestly, “I think I’m addicted to it.”

And it wasn’t until I had uttered the words that I realized how startled I was.  I thought twice, three, seven times about it after I’d said it. I’m thinking about it now.  Is it possible that work is my drug? My vice? The excuse I use to avoid the things that are too painful to deal with?

“I can’t, I’m working. ”  I’ve said that a hundred times.  I’ve cancelled dates, dinners with friends, happy hours, movie nights, vacations, weekends away.  You don’t get hurt if you don’t put yourself out there and you don’t have to put yourself out there when you’ve constantly got a reason to get out of everything.

I’m so easily consumed by working, by diving in and never coming back up, not breathing.  This is nothing new, as I’ve been doing it since I was a kid.  And in college, I took 20+ hours a semester and worked two jobs.  Since I graduated, I have never worked your standard 8-5.  It’s always been a 6 or 7 to whenever plus weekends and holidays if needed, and I’ve always volunteered.  I never sit idle.

I think it’s coping.  It’s avoidance in its purest form.  It’s a way to feel like I am in control without having to admit I’m out of control of anything. It’s therapy and it’s masochistic all at the same time.  It’s a way to avoid everything out there that makes me feel bad, sad, less. A way to forget about the ugly, to ignore the unfriendly and blind myself of the ache.  It’s a way to feel worthwhile, respected, responsible…safe.  It doesn’t get messy if you don’t let it, and the more one cocoons, the more one delves so deeply into something tangible and malleable with total control of the outcome–with the ability to determine whether the ending will be happy or sad, the more one can avoid all that is on the outside.  He will let me take on more and more and more without worry that I won’t come through because he rarely sees me fail–I rarely fail because time is no object, and I will work tirelessly to succeed.  I claim it’s about experience–learning about running a company, gaining a skill-set, climing as quickly as I can so they’ll never want to see me leave–but perhaps it’s more about fear.

I’m afriad this has been going on for over a decade, and tonight over Mexican food and margaritas, it became foggy when really I thought I had had it all figured out.  I never really thought about it before–I figured I was doing what I could to get the job done and my willingness to do whatever it took was just a well-bred, Iowa work ethic. 

But now I’m not so sure.