fear, sometimes

So we're seven days into the new year.

I know I wanted to post pictures of my trip to Portland, and write about the fun we had there, and show you all the delights we discovered, but somehow I'm not in the mood.

Ever since arriving home and having to put the holidays away - having to wrap them up and put them back in the box, and adjust back to routine life, I've been feeling all over the place. Fear. Sadness. Loneliness.

Is it fatigue making me cry at the drop of a hat? Or the birth control pill? One never knows where these feelings completely originate. Much like a river. Is it that little brook, or that one? They all join together eventually and form a river, one you don't argue with.

All I know is, I'm here. This moment is real too. The light coming in the bedroom window, my own bed with just me in it, the snow on the yard that I've seen a thousand times.

Now that it's January, I'm no longer employed. Well, I have things I'm doing - I tell people when I run into them at the grocery store. I do, I do. I'm busy. I'm useful to society. I've got boards I sit on and projects I'm working on. But, I'm laid off for a few months. I didn't think it was going to feel like it does. I was looking forward to it, to tell you the truth! Time off, time to do my own thing. Now it's here and I'm like, overwhelmed. With these big projects I want to accomplish,  in the next three months, and feeling like they'll never get done. With time and space to sleep in, and wanting to, and yet feeling guilty for doing it.

And, I don't want to dwell on it too much. I write a bit, like this, or in my journal or in an email, and then something in me goes "OK! Get up and dance!" and I put on some Paul Simon and move my body around. Meld yoga poses and rhythm into a dance. FEEL my physical body. When I get too much up in my head, that's when I need to feel my physical body. Feel these arms, legs, belly, all these giddy human cells that make up ME.

"Love is eternal sacred light..." (From Paul Simon's newest album.)

I guess part of it is that the things I have planned for the next three months are all about being bold, being creative, being strong. Putting myself out there, believing in myself. And sometimes I don't believe in myself. That's when being alone sucks, because there is nothing and no-one to distract me from that fact. That fear that I will be exposed as a complete fraud.

(I know enough now to know that every creative person feels this way from time to time. I know I am not a fraud.)

And the Internet can feel so fast, so speedy. Like there is no time for reflection. Like you've got to be Breaking News! all the time if you want any attention at all. If you want to make your mark. And there is so much out there, so much news and scary stories and things to be afraid of. I can't take it, sometimes.

Well, I want to make my mark on the world. But the world sometimes exhausts me. Sometimes I want to spend days and days walking along a country road, all by myself, yet at the same time I don't want that at all, I want my boyfriend to cuddle me and tell me everything is going to be all right. But he can't always be there. Sometimes I need to look out at that snowy yard, all by myself. Whether I like it or not.

How are you feeling now that the confetti's been swept away and you're back in your rhythm?