I found a way to escape the voices of stress and doubt that have been plaguing me as of late, at least for a couple hours. I needed the break. I am pulled tighter than a drum head these days. Today, finally, I had an escape, a special treat for my birthday: a two hour massage. If you've never had one, for all that is good in the world, do this next time your birthday rolls around. Or do it now. I recommend now. I worried that I would be so tormented, as I have for weeks, and it would take the whole first hour just to relax. Lucky for me, I have a good relationship with my massage therapist, to whom I have been loyal for a couple years now, and it took only about ten minutes, tops, before I was putting the rest of my life on mute and instead listening to the voice in my head that tells me it's all going to work out. This was the voice I would much rather listen to, the one that props me up when I'm having doubts, the one who listened patiently when I worked through all my misanthropic nightmares a year and a half ago, who told me that I had the tools I need to move forward. I had lost touch with that voice, and I was adrift. We still have a bit of catching up to do, and it needs to explain where the hell it was for weeks, but we'll get there. At least twice while I lay on that table, letting my muscles get pulverized for no other reason than it felt awesome to do so, I had what my therapist laughingly called an out of body experience (after I told him about the first one). First, I had my face buried in the cradle, and was so entirely focused on the work being done on the back of my neck that the rest of me went numb, and I was surprised when he switched back to shoulders. I could barely feel them, and it was true bliss for someone who used to have the tensest shoulders of all time. Later, near the end of the massage, after several hops back and forth over the line of consciousness, I had to open my eyes to figure out where I was. I was convinced I was asleep in bed, and I had to check to make sure I didn't see my bedside table and lamp. This is exactly what I wanted and needed today.
After a quick stop at Target for cat litter and toilet paper (because, really, these things serve the same purpose and I refuse to run out of either), I found that the big line of storms that has been pushing through the country was arriving in my county. As I cleared the store doors, the skies lit up in extended flashes. The show continued as I headed home, and I wondered at the wisdom of stopping for gas during a dangerous electrical storm. I figured if I survived pumping gas when it was 20 below zero, and the high winds that raced up my pants legs to find the vulnerable knee skin exposed above my socks made it feel more like 50 below, then I wasn't going to let the risk of a lightning strike stop me when gas is finally below three dollars a gallon again. I can't guarantee that will last. By the time I was one stoplight away from my neighborhood, the rain was so strong I could barely stay on the road. (My little car tends to hydroplane easily.) So much of the rain here is quiet. I miss the loud booming storms from out west. This light show was a welcome entertainment.
I keep wondering where the blogs are coming from, especially as everything has crashed on me over the last year. It feels like the ones that ought to be the hardest, when I am at my nadir emotionally, are the ones that flow without extended pauses in the composing. I saw that a neuroscientist from my old school has done extensive research that might help me understand why that is the case. She says that while one is suffering from anxiety, the brain is overwhelmed at possible word choices, and selection becomes far more difficult. Depression yields the opposite effect, oddly. Somehow, the brain is quieter, and the decision-making process in word selection is streamlined. I need to read more of what she has discovered. But if it means that I have to continue to feel like I'm down in the dumps to write well (and quickly), I'm not sure I'm up for that. What a choice to make--feel well or write well. Making that decision is far worse than picking a few choice words right now.
The article about this scientist came from my school's Arts & Sciences magazine:
http://artsandsciences.colorado.edu/magazine/2014/10/depressed-but-decisive-anxious-and-paralyzed/
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