I sat outside for a little while today to put my feet in the grass and get some sun. A stranger walks her dog and passes me by. With a smile on her face, she asks me, how are you today?
My mind thinks “how am I? I don’t even know how to answer that. I’ve spent the last year and a half in my house, I’m stir crazy. I think I’m depressed half the time because of the unbearable amounts of pain and trauma I’ve survived that I’m still trying to figure out how to process and let go of. I’m really doing my best to make the most of the hand I’ve been dealt but it’s complex and isolating and I’d like to just forget about it already.
I’m stressed out because the amount of expenses and supplements and high quality foods and peptides and doctor appointments cost us an unbelievable amount of money that no insurance would ever cover because our medical system doesn’t even recognize what’s happened to me as anything more than anxiety. I go through waves of feeling deep dread for the new person I am.
In reality, I know it’s the cloud I’m coming out of but it has a way of feeling unbearably heavy and like nothing all at once, but I’m not the same as I used to be, and no matter what I tell anyone else, I can’t seem to find the words that could help them understand what I’ve been through. And then I think well I don’t need anyone to understand. I know where I’ve come from. Some moments I feel glimpses of happiness and some I feel the anger that’s unraveling inside me. I play a constant game with myself of shifting my focus every waking minute of every day that goes by, but to be honest, I’m tired, I wish I could just drink a cup of coffee and go for a walk around the block to sort my thoughts.
I want to eat nightshades and pizza again and go scream my favorite song in the car with the windows down. Instead I wait, and try to help others as I process so I can look back on this time and say “I did all I could to turn this unbelievably daunting chapter into some to ing great” but sometimes, I just don’t want to. So I try to take a break. I breathe and remind myself that this human experience is supposed to be just this — a plethora of feelings that I embrace and let flow. I am lucky to be able to feel the sun on my face and the grass between my toes right now, because just a few months ago, I dreamed of this reality while spending endless days in my bed.”
Instead I just reply, “Good, how are you?” She says “Good.” We smile at each other and she walks away.
And in that moment, something reminded me how infinitesimally small we are…how easily we get clouded by the stresses and experiences that happen as we go about our days. And that maybe, we are supposed to just float on through, feeling as much of it as we can. That maybe, it’s not as complicated as we make it out to be…and maybe, that’s really the point of it all.
