The Light at the End of the Tunnel (*NEW*)

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

Darkness.
Stretching on for what seems like forever.
Reaching out to infinity in all directions.
I don't know if I am moving forward
Or just standing still
In this endless, pitch-black night.

Suddenly, it appears:
A blinding, brilliant flash of white
Somewhere in the distance in front of me.
(I can't tell how far.)
It hovers there, pulsing, twinkling,
Threatening to blink out again at any moment.
The light at the end of the tunnel.

This isn't the first time.
They've appeared before, but they never last.
Always fade and fizzle out before I can quite reach them.

I want so badly to grab this light.
To hold onto it with everything I have left.
Every last ounce of hope that my tired soul can muster.
But I'm terrified to try.
Too afraid to even acknowledge that this could actually be
The light at the end of the tunnel.
Terrified that if I name it,
Or allow myself to believe it,
It will blink out just as quickly as it appeared.
Just like all the other ones have.
Thrusting me back into the endless dark.

I can feel its pull
Drawing me in like a moth to a flame.
So desperate for something, anything
That can finally shatter this endless darkness
And bring me back into the light.
"Please," my mind shouts into the void,
"Please please please, please let this be the one.
The real one, the one that doesn't disappear
And leave me here.
I can't hold on much longer.
I need this."

Silently, my tears fall.
As I am consumed by hope and fear and desperation.
The light at the end of the tunnel.


(Note: This is my reaction to today's potential good news about a Covid vaccine for kids under 5 - which includes my almost-3-year-old.  It's been over two years that I've kept my family in strict lockdown.  We've sacrificed so much to keep all four of us safe and alive.  Jobs, friendships, socialization, education, enrichment...life.  As the rest of the world has returned to mostly "normal" the past few months, it's been even more isolating to continue our precautions, because for us, nothing has changed, but everyone else doesn't realize that, because they've already gotten back their lives.  I feel incredibly alone, overwhelmed, and so, so tired.  Constant vigilance is exhausting.  Survival mode is exhausting.  And it's not sustainable for over two years.  I need this so desperately.  WE need this so desperately.  PLEASE let it be real this time.  Please.)   

Musings: On Letting Yourself Feel Your Feelings

I've been seeing a lot of posts on the internet lately about feelings, and specifically about how to help children learn to manage their emotions.  The common theme is always, "encourage them to feel their feelings, validate them, and don't try to suppress them or brush them away with toxic positivity, etc."  News flash: THIS APPLIES TO ADULTS, TOO.  In reconnecting with the deeper-feeling parts of myself lately, I've experienced a lot of positive emotions.  Connection, passion, and that really deep love that you only get when you are fully connected and engaged.  But along with that come deeper negative emotions, too.  The anger I mentioned in my last post, to start with (and funny enough, this very applicable meme resurfaced in my facebook memories today):

I perpetually have very few spoons, but an almost unlimited supply of sporks.  Especially if someone unlocks my secret spork stash.  Which is what my last post on anger was about.  I was thinking about it more this morning, and I got this mental image of a whole army of spork-wielding fiends - in my head, it kind of looked like the Kakamora from Moana!  It made me smile.

About 8 or 9 years ago, a good friend lent me the Highly Sensitive People book that has the test in it to see if you might be an HSP.  It's something like 25 yes or no questions of the "does this statement apply to you?" variety, and according to the book, if you get 13 or more "yes" answers, you might be an HSP.  I got 23.  Out of 25.  My first reaction was to laugh, and then to say, "well, that explains a lot!"  As you can tell from my musings, I'm a huge psychology nerd.  I majored in psychology in college, and I still love reading and learning more about it.  I ultimately decided not to pursue a career in the field for several reasons, but one of the strongest reasons is because I feel other people's emotions as if they were my own.  I internalize EVERYTHING, and for my own mental health, I decided it wouldn't be a good idea to put myself in the position of constantly absorbing other people's struggles.  I still second-guess that decision sometimes.  But being empathic in that way, and being an HSP, also means that I have to be very careful about what media I allow myself to consume.  And limiting media consumption sometimes leads to trying to limit what emotions I expose myself to, and that leads to trying to limit the level at which I engage with my own emotions, especially negative ones.  I know this isn't healthy, or sustainable.  I'm working on it.

Last week, I read a post on tumblr that I really shouldn't have.  It set me OFF (and it was what ultimately triggered the anger that I tried to describe in my last post).  A few days later, a song that I associate very strongly with the subject of that tumblr post kept trying to get stuck in my head.  I spent a lot of time and energy trying to block it out with other songs, because I haven't been able to listen to that song without spiraling off into some DEEP negative emotions since that association formed.  I was successful that night.  But when I woke up the next morning, the song was already in my head.  So I finally said, "you know what?  If it's trying THAT hard to get in my head, maybe I should just let it."  So I tentatively let a few lines play in my head.  And you know what?  It was okay.  It made me sad, but I didn't spiral.  And after a little while, it went out of my head on its own.  I spent the rest of the day trying to figure out whether this meant that I've gotten to a better place with my emotions around it, or whether I was slipping into apathy again, which scares me more than anything else in this world.  Ultimately, I realized that it wasn't apathy, because I was still experiencing pretty strong emotional reactions to other things.

I typically have very weird and vivid dreams.  I don't always remember them, but I usually remember that I dreamed, even if I can't remember what they were.  I got to sleep in today, and when I first woke up, I wasn't dreaming, but I had a single image in my mind's eye (I don't think this has ever happened before).  I don't think it's a real image that exists in the world, just something my mind created, but it made me happy.  So I decided not to open my eyes, and maybe it would stick around for a little while.  I dozed off and woke up a couple of more times, and each time, the image remained.  When I eventually got up for real, I got online to check all of my various things.  There was a whole bunch of new stuff that all revolved around the same theme as the mental image that I woke up with, which is also the same theme as the association with the song from a few days ago, AND the same theme as the tumblr post that set off my spork rebellion.  I shouldn't really be surprised to see this particular synchronicity, because when something is the main focus of your time and attention, of course it pops up everywhere.  But the sheer quantity of related items that I saw in the first hour I was awake today made it really stand out.  So I started thinking about all of the related stuff from the past week or two, and I managed to get a song stuck in my head without even hearing it ("Hey Jude", in case you were wondering), because it kind of arose out of the themes of my train of thought.  The conclusion that I came to was that I need to let myself feel ALL of my feelings.  Trying to shut them out or brush them away doesn't work, because it doesn't make them go away, and they will eventually force their way to the surface anyway.  I already knew this, but I obviously needed the reminder.  The universe made this message very clear, and I am listening.  I'm trying.  It's going to be a messy process, but I am going to try my best to allow myself to feel the full extent of my emotions, and to express them freely (which is the part I struggle with most, because I've been burned A LOT in the past by people being dismissive and not understanding why things affect me so much).  

I know this is a huge part of this journey to reconnecting with myself, and becoming ME again.  I'm a little nervous, but I'm mostly really excited about it.  I want to be myself, and that means feeling too much sometimes, and expressing it in many ways.  Allowing myself to do that will be so freeing.  And for that, I can't wait!

Musings: On Anger, Passion, and To Kill a Mockingbird

It's really hard to make me angry.  I get annoyed or frustrated easily and often, but true anger is a rare occurrence for me.  I'm generally a very forgiving person (of others, not so much of myself), but there is a short list of what are, to me, unforgivable offenses.  If someone does one of the things on that list, they earn themselves a spot on my permanent shit list (which has exactly two people on it, to show how rare this really is), and I get ANGRY.  I mean INCENSED.  White hot fire angry.  Righteous anger at a grave injustice angry.  End of the world angry. 

What most of my unforgivable offenses list boils down to is gravely wronging or deeply hurting someone who is extremely important to me.  When I care that much, when I'm engaged and connected and passionate, I get very protective.  I see whoever or whatever the object of my passion is as inherently GOOD.  So to wrong them is to do a great injustice.  When that righteous anger really gets flowing, it brings out what I call my To Kill a Mockingbird defense.  There is a passage in To Kill a Mockingbird that always stuck with me:

"That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.  'Your father's right,' she said.  'Mockingbirds don't do one thing except make music for us to enjoy.  They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corn cribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.  That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird.'"

To me, this has always rung true in its intended metaphorical sense.  Wronging people who are inherently good (mockingbirds) is a sin.  It's the ultimate sin against humanity.  Goodness is to be protected at all costs, and the To Kill a Mockingbird defense is my brain's way of reinforcing that.  

Of course, I'm usually not in a position to actually throw it at the offender.  In 2009, when my passion broke my heart, this consumed me.  I had no way of expressing my anger in any real way, or having any real impact on the situation.  I could talk to other people in my position, and they would sometimes agree with me, but they also had no agency in what was happening.  After many years, the white hot anger finally lessened to a low simmer (most of the time, unless something triggered it back into full force temporarily).  Since then, I've never been connected enough to or passionate enough about anything for that kind of anger to occur, and I had actually forgotten about it.  But now, as I'm reconnecting with the part of my core self that IS passionate, and DOES connect that deeply, I am also rediscovering my capacity for this intense anger, and the continued (maybe even strengthened?) resonance of the To Kill a Mockingbird defense.  I've been struggling with that a lot in recent days.  It's so powerful, and sometimes it can be overwhelming.  It can override all of my logical and other emotional parts of my brain, and it's very easy to get completely consumed by it.  But I'm trying to keep the perspective that it's a good thing, that this intensity of emotion and specifically anger means that I DO still have the capacity for that depth of passion and connection, and that I AM opening it up again, and that those parts of myself that I once thought were lost forever are still very much alive.  I'm still me.  I'm still a creature of pure emotion and passion, and I still exist from a place of so much love.  As long as you don't try to kill my mockingbirds.   

Musings: On the Role of Music in my Life

I've been really struggling with my mood this week.  It's been all over the place, and it feels like nothing I do keeps it stable for more than a short time.  Last night, I decided to forego working on my grandma's story in favor of watching one of my favorite movies, Empire Records.  I had used a gif from the movie earlier in the day, and it made me realize that I hadn't watched it in a really long time.  That movie always gives me a very specific kind of mood boost, and it was exactly what I needed right now.  After the movie ended, I needed more music.  So I turned on my Pandora station and rocked out for about an hour.  I've had my Pandora station for over a decade, and it's so well-honed that about 85% of what it plays is The Fray, Five for Fighting, and Coldplay.  It somehow always knows the perfect combination of songs to play for me, too.  Last night's selection included "Yellow," "Superman (It's Not Easy)," "The Riddle," and a live version of "The Scientist."  When I turned it off and went to bed, my mood had FINALLY stabilized, for the first time in a long time.

Before the pandemic, I got about two hours of music time during my commute every weekday.  I knew I missed that, but now I realize it's more than that.  I don't just miss it.  I need it.  Listening to music is how I process things.  It's gotten me through every hard time in my entire life.  But since I'm never in the car anymore, the only times I get to listen to music are on the rare family car ride (which are usually short), or when I have a song really stuck in my head, so I play it on youtube or whatever.  I haven't had a real, extended music session in months.  Last night, I realized that that's not enough.  I need more than one song, I need the random selection of the radio, and I need space to rock out in my own way, and I need an extended period of time to listen and feel the music.  I need to be better about making time for that going forward, because when I don't, I'm a mess.  Lesson learned.  And it's an important one.

The First Month of Junior Year

 The First Month of Junior Year

I return
To this place I've been yearning for
But it isn't the same
There's something missing
A hole
Emptiness

I walk through the same familiar places
See so many familiar faces
But it isn't the same
Emptiness

In chairs where you used to sit
Smiling up at me
Or the hallways we walked down together
Emptiness
Everywhere

I can't escape
Walking down the street, I see a car that looks like yours
I put my head down and walk faster
Before I start to cry

Everywhere and everything
It isn't the same
There's something missing
You.

Gradually I grow accustomed
Hang out with friends
Laughing, talking, giggling
(emptiness)
Making plans
Joking
Having fun

Daily life continues
Classes, reading, homework
(emptiness)
Learning and growing
The college experience

I walk around with a smile on my face
Saying "hello" to people I pass
Wishing that somehow it was you in front of me
Always with an encouraging smile
Brightening up my every day
With your presence

I go on with my life
Doing all the normal things
I am no longer depressed
And yet...
Still there is something missing
An emptiness in everything I do
It hides behind superficial happiness
But underneath, I am still yearning
To return home
Where the heart is
My heart is still with you.

(Note: This poem is dated September 29, 2003, about one month into my junior year of college.  It was written about a specific person at the time, but over the years, I've come back to it a few times in other situations, and it still seems to resonate in some ways.  I really love this one, I think it's one of the best I've ever written in terms of how well it expresses what I was feeling.  I have a LOT of poetry from this era of my life, and I've never shared most of it publicly before, because it's very personal and intense, and also because it was a complicated situation.  I'm not sure how much more of it I'll end up sharing here, but this one in particular has been screaming to be shared for a long time, so I'm excited to get it out there!) 

Who Am I?

Who Am I?

Who am I?
I am whoever you make me out to be.
I am a figment of the world's imagination.
Nothing real.
No sense of self.
No me.
Nobody.
I am.

(Note: This is a poem I wrote in college, during a period of time when I was depressed and struggling to find...anything, really.  It's dated September 3, 2003, which puts it a couple of weeks into my junior year.  It actually resonated with me much more later on, in my mid-to-late-20s.  Anytime something keeps coming back like that, I know it hit on something true.  I really love this one!)

Musings: On Mental Health and Self-Destructive Tendencies

I crashed last night.  Not the hardest I've ever crashed, but a crash nonetheless.  I've known it was coming for a while.  I've kind of been waiting for it to happen.  Highs don't usually last as long as this one did (over three months!), and I could feel it slipping.  I'm also mad at myself, though, because I triggered it, and I purposely ignored the signs.  There's a reason why I tend to stick to the known, especially when it comes to entertainment/media.  I know how my brain and my body will react, because a) I've experienced it before, and b) I know exactly what's coming.  Especially during this pandemic, when my anxiety is perpetually at a higher baseline, I've tried to maintain constant vigilance about what I'm allowing myself to consume.  I'm not great at it, to be honest.  I've been doing a decent job of late, not opening the door for anything new, sticking to what I know.  But constant vigilance is exhausting, and sometimes I slip.  Sometimes I even slip on purpose, because my curiosity and my desire to FEEL THINGS overrides my defense mechanisms.  This happens for many reasons, but I think the biggest one is because the thing that scares me the most is apathy.  I'm such an emotionally-driven person, and when I start to lose my ability to feel, that's when I know things are really bad with my mental health, because that's my brain's last resort, fall-back defense.  I'm extremely thankful that I haven't crashed that hard this time (at least not yet).

I'm still angry with myself for letting this happen, though.  I saw all the signs.  Saw them, and ignored them, in favor of trying to perpetuate the Good Feelings as long as I could.  I know how my brain works.  I know that it latches onto things, especially things that are familiar.  I know that sometimes things that are intended to have one effect have a very different effect on me, because my brain interprets them in a different way.  I know that I'm a HSP (highly sensitive person) and an empath, and I know that I have to be especially careful with things that activate those aspects of myself, because they can (and usually do) spiral out of my control SO quickly.  I know these things, AND YET...I made the very conscious choice to ignore them.  I did this to myself. 

And now...how do I fix it?  How do I bring myself back up?  Obviously I need to take a break from the things I was doing that caused this shift.  But that doesn't change how I feel now.  My go-to is usually music.  But even with that, I have to carefully curate my playlist, because if I choose the wrong song, it could completely backfire and shove me even farther down.  It's like tiptoeing through a minefield.  And there are songs that I usually find comforting that I honestly don't know if they'd make this better or worse.  I guess I should just avoid them until I'm back on more solid emotional ground.  But I don't WANT to.  I still want to just dive in head first, consequences be damned.  Even though I know better.  Why?  Why can't I just do the smart thing and not actively make it worse for myself?  Why can't I just be patient and trust that when I do get myself back up out of this, I'll be able to enjoy those things again (although maybe a little more slowly and carefully)?  Anxiety is a b*tch.

(Note: The timing of this is really interesting, since May is Mental Health Awareness Month.  I hope that maybe putting this out there will help someone else who is struggling with these things, or with other mental health stuff.  We're never as alone as we feel.)