Longing for a peaceful life.

American Goldfinch on our maple tree in Winter.

Every once in a while I get a stunning glimpse of what my life used to look and feel like.  Those moments are unsettling, rather like a dream filled with exciting events and/or people that don't exist in reality.  Constructs of our subconscious, all of them, but beautiful in their own mildly distorted way.  I recognize those visions, feelings, fleeting though they are, and while I wish I could just bask in them at will... I don't dare.  Dreams are one thing, but the memories that flood to the surface on rare occasions rock my world a bit.  I mean, why wouldn't they?  In stark contrast to my everyday life they are like colorized, HD versions of what actually is.  I honestly don't know what to think of them most of the time.

Two seconds, maybe three.  This is what I'm allowed when these memories surface.  But why?  Why is it I can't just recall something on command and remember completely, all the details, sights, sounds, the way something smelled?  Why is it they come, unbidden, unannounced, unexpected?  A few seconds of feeling.... alive... only for it all to be taken away as if it never was.  Why?

Anxiety.  It moved in a few years back and is still an unwanted intruder that's more than worn out its welcome.  I'm not talking the kind of anxiety that brings on panic attacks, but the kind that just gnaws at your life, your soul every moment of every day, stealing joy and happiness, depriving me of sleep and making waking in the morning a most unpleasant affair that even coffee can't cure.

For me, anxiety is a learned response, something that comes from repeated pressures that ride on the back of demands.  Everything begins to feel like a 'have to right now' event, a task that is surely to eat you alive and come with a terrible price if not completed according to the time frame and whim of another.  Those demands, spoken aloud or left to be found, pierce the spirit with joy-stealing accuracy, creating a far-reaching wound that refuses to heal.  And it hurts.  Always.

If you've dealt with true stress, and I don't mean stress of the motivating variety but the life-shortening kind, then you know what damage it can do.  For me, this means daily 3am awakenings with the first and foremost thought in-mind is something laden with panic, with fear.  The previous day's decisions and actions, no matter how good or well-intended, are transformed into regrets that sometimes lead to making decisions that should be left for a much better day, a much better mindset.  But this is not how these things work.

In the 3am dark of the room everything I've ever done has be infinitely wrong somehow.  With no one to talk to, nowhere to turn, and no guidance whatsoever as to how to deal with this and fall asleep again... I feel trapped in my own space, my own bed, in my own head.  And the anxious, panicky feelings, when they come, eclipse that of the last.  Yeah.  They're getting worse.

And yes, I do know why.  That's a blog entry for another day.

So now what?  Honestly, when I began seeing a therapist after my last relationship I learned a great deal of what I was dealing with, what he was and what he wasn't, and I learned a lot about myself too.  Many traits I have I've always known about, and to be honest... they're things I wouldn't change about me.  But I've picked up a few new ones as a matter of 'survival.'  Okay, that's a lot to take in, and dealing with them full-on in a healthy way takes some work.  But I didn't get to finish that discovery and moved before I could.  It's kind of like missing the last chapter of a book you can't put down, and I'm eager to know how it ends.  So, my next step is to find another therapist, because life isn't always perfect, and I cannot continue to live the way I'm living.  Something has to give, and right now that something is me, my health, my happiness.  Oh, but hasn't that always been that which gives way under the worst of circumstances?

I will revisit this soon.