i don't remember when i actually posed for a laptop webcam pic. when i last gave a fuck about capitalizing letters. when i wanted to be on here. i have a new lens in which i was able to see the world through. i didn't know when i'd be back. or how? or why..
Anywho.
After having a existential crisis of a disturbing magnitude, I can honestly say that it was like getting shot in the chest and blacking out during the moment of impact. Waking up in the hospital hooked up to vital-monitoring machines, intubated, wincing in pain from the tiniest efforts to move unassisted. Learning that the bullet missed your heart by mere millimeters. I know that's a ghastly image to conjure in your mind, but I've been in a situation like that before (not getting shot, but all of the other things. Intubation, intense pain, and the hard-hitting realization that I narrowly escaped death.)
My anxiety consumed me. You'd have thought that as someone who has been through countless situations where emergent action was required to save a life, I felt paralyzed to save my own. The invisible noose was so taut, I couldn't bring myself to look at anything on the internet for weeks. No shopping online, not watching youtube, not learning new things on random websites in the middle of the night, nothing. All that could loosen this noose was genuine connection to all the things that never failed to calm me down, and that was spending time with animals. I'm sure you're thinking, what about the other things people tend to do to reconnect with themselves? My brain has a funny way of telling me that it already knows when I'm trying to lie to myself or take the easy way out. My body finds out first, but when my brain realizes it, the gavel has already struck the block, and the verdict is final.
I did however, attempt these methods as well in a sincere attempt to be "productive" in my downtime (this brain knows not what sincere downtime is unless it's sleep)
I would try a new read. A little jump roping. Lifting weights (mind/muscle connection!) and for a short period of time, it did quell my anxious mind. I was actually able to sleep a bit soundly after that. Was I trying to escape something? Conflict? Destructive behaviors? Likely. Having to confront the sources of my anxiety and what I already knew in my heart I was avoiding was eating me from the inside out. All of the worst thoughts I had about myself were coming out again. The fears, doubts, excuses and rationalizations I came up with were all seeping through the floorboards. I'm not mad about it now, but in the moment it felt like what little organization I had left in my life that was keeping me together just disappear.
The bag that contained all of my 'marbles' had ripped open at the seams. I felt it again. That victim mentality that was so good at making excuses for why I was not putting in all that I could into something. The part that I would keep hidden away from the world to hide my insecurities. All stemming from fear. What a ridiculous way to be in my own way. The reasons I'm here where I am today.
