Unfurled wings

I wanted to title this something along the lines of, “I got my wings back!” but that seemed more Clarence where I was looking for “free as a bird” as a cogent follow-up to yesterday’s post, so…I took the opportunity to use the delicious word “unfurled.” Go ahead, say it. Feel it unfurl from your tongue, which unfurls from your mouth. Just luscious.

Well anyway I know my pattern well and the past 48 hours have illustrated it to a tee. The cycle goes something like this:

A question needs to be answered or a problem needs to be solved. On its own, c’est pas grave, but it’s usually the end of a thread that pulls to many more, larger unanswered questions that really I ought to address before even attempting to look at the problem at hand andthen BOOM I am suffocated under an avalanche of combinations of variables and permutations of options. Paralyzed beyond the dry sobs that tend to convulse the rib cage and turn the whole body into a question mark.

Yes, it is totally self-destructive to render myself incapacitated just at the time I am called to make what is (at least on the surface) a simple decision.

Mais, donc alors voilà! We do not choose our neuroses! And so I must work within (actually more like outside of) the parameters of my own.

So yesterday I felt overwhelmed and blue about the month of December, and then about 2012, then about the rest of my life, then about all things great and small. Life is hard, I’m drowning in waves of emotions, I cannot bear the weight of my pitiful existence, etc. These are the times I lean on writing the most, and I lean hard. I hope my life is never judged by the content of my journals because they would paint a pretty miserable picture; after all, when I am happy and life is easy, I do not spend page after page dithering, whining, or ruminating.  My journals comprise angst-ridden pages overflowing with melodrama, judgments and reactions completely out of proportion to my life as seen through an objective lens. I realize this, and so I spill the junk into private pages rather than ears. Yesterday’s brief post was an indulgence of my angst, and those words were few compared to what I wrote with a pen.

Anyway, le sommeil (and some exercise) donne le bon conseil and this morning the storm had passed, the fog had lifted. Isolating problems and putting out the biggest fires first was suddenly manageable, and difficult tasks were methodically executed. This happy burst of productivity predictably led to feelings of Competence, Capability and Confidence. And so more problems were solved. Once again I saw that nothing is impossible.

Doubt begets fear begets misery begets crying into my journal. The doors turn inward.

Action begets action begets progress begets growth. The doors open outward.

I have illustrated to myself (for the nth time) that I am the biggest obstacle I face. But what to do next time? Is it possible to bootstrap myself out of the mope when I am in it? How can my prefrontal cortex untangle itself without its consent? One strategy to acknowledge and respect the low and ride it out, knowing I will pull it together soon. But that seems like a real luxury, because life doesn’t always wait for the weepies to finish having their way with one.

Lucky for me, it appears this time it did, and I hope I have wrested the right lesson. If not, guess I’ll just listen to this bad boy on repeat and wait for the message to sink in.

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