Under Pressure

Deflecting all the energy today. Trying to stand by my self and my needs. I'm trying hard to fit in here. And somehow the idea of seeing people who aren't here in this with me every day is causing me to crack. I'm obsessively trying to think of what kind of excuses would be acceptable. Because radio silence is clearly the worst thing I could project. Listening to Runaway by The National. Runaway is a title I can relate to. As soon as I'm safe and secure, I can't help but think about bailing out. It happened 3 weeks into my new job. It happened 5 years into my marriage. 50 pages into Jane Eyre. 2 years into piano lessons. Love/hate. Living on a razor's edge here.

Fantasizing about going back to Chicago. Living 4 blocks away from my daughter's dad. Home schooling. Being free of my old ties. Lighter than when I left. Golden highlights in my skin and hair, trophies to prove my endurance in the elements. And then I think, I'm winning. Why retire? Why go back to the pollution and scowls and desperate anger and tears. I can never return to what I knew. It only exists in the matrix like an etched record of what was, and can only be replayed on the victrola in my mind. New sounds and pictures are all I have in the now, new explorations and experimentations.

The mountain will know what I mean.

feels

Grief is contagious. I eat it up, actually, the aroma entices me. Feeling bad is feeling, and sometimes it's delicious to feel. My friend is grieving now, and she's not talking about it. I sought some evidence of her thoughts by reading her blog. And now I'm guilty by association, for knowing what's going on in her mind. I asked her if she wanted to have coffee, as in quiet time, as in let's just sit on your deck and listen to the wind and feel the warm mug in our hands together. I don't blame her if she ignores that message and chooses to have coffee solo. We have an understanding. We fly under the radar in times like this, and the other understands. I guess I felt compelled to ask. I already had coffee. To be honest.

Feeling good seems to give some people the wrong idea, that I want them along for the ride. Someone I knew 25 years ago randomly contacted me because she's wandering around my town. My reaction? Anger. "What makes her think I'm just sitting around waiting for a last minute invitation to socialize?!" Ok, but I'll try to take it down a notch. Feel less. Less. Even less. Ok, better.