What's the Difference in a Breakdown and a Breakthrough?

 I don't think I realized how bad it's been really until this morning. I don't know if it's the light real close at hand or just the total weight of the years spent this way crushing back down.

It's been a great weekend. I am having the worst anxiety right now. Nikola is on his way back from the airport after being gone all weekend and it's been so nice and peaceful without him that I just dread it.

I did laundry. I washed, dried, folded, hung and put it all away.

I cleaned the floors, including vacuuming the stairs because there was  no one to get mad if I made noise.

I changed the sheets and washed all of the bedding like my allergist tells me to.

I talked on the phone for about nine hours total in two days. And I really loved it. I didn't feel anxious or afraid to say the wrong thing. I wonder how much of that is me healing and how much of that is knowing that these people love me and will give me grace if I say the wrong thing and let me explain myself completely and not punish me.

I made the bed every morning because I knew it would be made when I was ready to get into it every night.

I lingered in bed in the mornings because there was no one to inconvenience with my existence.

I brushed my teeth and showered in my own bathroom whenever I wanted.

I spent an entire afternoon painting and playing my music kind of loud and I didn't worry about who might be upset or displeased with me.

This morning, with my anxiety this way, my natural tendency is to clean. Compulsively. It's something productive that shows a clear result and makes me feel better. But I realize that coping skill has been kind of crippled with the situation. Maybe that's good. Maybe it's a way of telling me that I have to come up with other ways to cope. And we all need a bunch in the tool box. Let me look for healthy ones.

I guess I've never really had much say in the space I inhabit. I've always shared space and it never occurred to me that I had any right to complain about others' little idiosyncrasies. I have plenty of my own. Don't get me started on the silverware drawer or the bookshelf or the proper way to make a bed. I am anal retentive and "compulsively tidy." Most of that is about the neatest, most practical way to share spaces though. I'm much less obsessive in places no one sees but me. Maybe because no one yells at me for things they can't see. Boy, is that whole thought telling.

I haven't wanted a drink all weekend. That's a hard thing to talk about, y'all. I know anxiety is what led at least one of my siblings to fall down the rabbit hole. Addiction is ugly and all the women in my family tend to have a bit of a crack about this age. Hopefully, as with some of them, I'll come up on the other side changed and improved and not just unpack and move into that space. 

So after that amazing weekend with all the amazing support and being supportive, after having space to be without guilt or feeling like a nuisance and spending time with my baby, maybe because he really likes me or maybe because he can see how much I need him right now, Monday hit me in the mouth like a haymaker.

So I've reached out to the usual suspects, one at a time. I know it's Monday. Everyone is busy. That's okay. I'm not exactly okay and that's okay too. I think that reaching out and asking for support when I need it helps. Please don't let this backfire on me again. I'm trying to love and trust fearlessly. I am not fearless and I'm definitely damaged. So much change and emotional turmoil and everything that's happening. I do not wish it all would go away, I want to feel everything. I just wish and work for the strength and coping tools to feel better.

I also think that no response is good for me too. It's good to sit with being uncomfortable sometimes. And so I will. And I will reflect and write. So much real progress happens for me at these times. Perhaps that has been part of the problem too. I have not been writing. All these years, I have not been writing. It's like air and river water and sunlight and love to me. Things you have to have. Things I have to have. When all of this started happening, I felt sort of a break. And all the feelings I'd avoided kind of fell around me like ashes and embers.

Days like today make me want to shrink back into myself. Withdraw. Isolate. Wrap myself around myself to keep me safe. I know I cannot do that. No matter what the next few weeks bring, I cannot do that. By the same token, I need to be extra careful about who I let myself be vulnerable to right now. I am so fragile. And I know it. That line between protecting myself and shutting everyone out is not an easy one for me. People you love will hurt you. That's just the nature of love. All that hope and believing the best. No one can live up to your love. Or you to theirs. That's part of why it's so hard. And so scary.

With that, I sit here with the small epiphany that no one can hate what I don't show them. Safety and loneliness are the same thing in that moment. I must have faith in others. Faith in myself to choose the best people. Granted, that track record ain't great. 

Wow, the immense relief writing brings. I am going to be okay. I really believe that for the first time in a very long time. It will not be easy. But I don't know how to take the path of least resistance anyway. Give me something to fight for.