Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Going slowly

I kind of hit a little critical mass today, and I'm finding that I have those more often now than I did before. A lot of inner dialogue going on, a lot less external processing.

Lately I'm finding that I'm still not slipping into the old stream nearly as easily as I thought I would. It's like the water doesn't know me anymore, and I don't remember its chilly bite, so it shocks me rather than feels familiar. I don't know how to stop trying to go back to who I was, what I did, what I believed, what I wanted, devoting my time in the ways I did, with whom, in what activities- all of it. That terrain is supposed to feel familiar, like home, and in so many ways, it doesn't.

That doesn't mean that it's bad or wrong or that I'm quitting or running away, or stopping talking to people or anything of that sort- I am just in the midst of figuring out that I can't do things the way I did them before, and I'm not sure why, I just know that I can't. And I don't know exactly where I'm supposed to go with that information.

That moment when you realize you've been walking past all the shops for so long and dreamily staring into the windows, until you noticed that you no longer recognize where you are- sitting on the steps, looking around, not sure which direction to go in order to find something familiar - that's me.

My husband feels deeply familiar, and in new ways. Whatever it was that tied us together has been plied with new experiences and while we do exist as two people, there are so many ways that I feel that we are one- in healthy, empowering ways. If every experience shapes us, what does sharing a life with someone do to us? Who would we be without that experience? I don't have to see myself as incomplete without him to know that I would be, the person I am today, incomplete, without him. It all makes sense, even though it doesn't.

I'm so grateful to live in a home where it feels familiar, and where I can spiritually and emotionally sort of throw myself around and try on different ways of being me, without it disrupting our home - mainly because it's probably all my family knows of me. ;) It's our normal, I think.

In the meantime, in the external world, I'm forgetting commitments, double booking my time, standing people up for work appointments, showing up late, forgetting things. It isn't that I don't care, because I care very much- but there is some place in my brain where the only thing I have space for is THIS moment, and the future is not in it. Therefore it doesn't exist, and therefore I can't think about it. I don't know how to shift this weird, slow place I'm in, except to notice that I"m not ready to swim. I'm not ready to try to dive back into an old life that died. I have to step away from it and venture forth and consciously choose who I am with every step, in a different way than I did before.

It takes a lot of energy, birthing oneself. I nap a lot, or wish I could. I think a lot. I am experiencing things intuitively in a new way and every new thing startles me.

I think I'm going so slowly, and then I realize that I can slow down even more.

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