It’s become just like a chemical stress
Tracing the lines in my face for
Something more beautiful than is there
I’ve barely been gone
~ Rilo Kiley
My most oft-recuring dream varies in detail, but is always the same at the core: I’ve been on a cruise that I don’t remember; it’s the last day, and I still haven’t been upstairs to see the sun.
You’d think I’d hustle my ass upstairs, but first I need to find my bathing suit. And pack. God, I have to pack; the whole room is an unmitigated disaster.
And meanwhile, passengers who’ve enjoyed the trip are headed upstairs with their suitcases.
It’s been so many years that I’ve dreamed this, that even within the dream, I realize “Oh, this is like my dream and I’ve toats learned.”
Except that I don’t.
I keep packing, literally and figuratively, looking for a bathing suit that I haven’t owned in 18 years so I can at least take a dip in the pool, if not the ocean. It’s that blue one with the white polka dots. It’s in here somewhere…
It isn’t, though.
My second most oft-recurring dream varies little in detail, except for the people involved. We’re always on an elevator, and I never want it to get too high. Because when it does, the bottom drops out and it’s like that ride that gets conflated with Gravitron, but isn’t. We rise and then fall and I simultaneously brace for impact and try to climb onto the walls to avoid the crash.
Sometimes, other times, I fly. I think that I hoped for juicing to get me there. That if I could just close my eyes, grit my teeth, and wait for a morning 29 days later, I could wake up as a superhero. The room from my first dream would be clean and packed and I’d be sunning or swimming, strong now. Better now.
That’s not how it works though, at least not left to my own devices and head space. Even if I went to Jason Vale’s retreat, stayed the course, and came home a changed woman? I don’t think I’d have the confidence to keep myself in the air, or my feet gliding over water, as it were.
Speaking of the Bible and retreats. My mother went on a retreat a couple of weeks ago and I don’t want to overshare her personal journey, but she said one big theme she took home from it was the reality of messiness. She’s messy, I’m messy, everyone is, inside, to at least some degree. And it’s not to say that we shouldn’t try to clean up that mess, but to insert my own stuff/keep hammering in the metaphor, I think it means that we definitely should not be missing out on entire cruises because we think cleaning up that mess is more important than the actual sun.
I don’t know how I’m going to reattempt the juicing hurdle, next. I know that I’m going to, but have spent these past couple of weeks in my cruise-ship room, trying to make it neat and my bathing-suit-clad self presentable. If I could only find one…
And it’s driven me absolutely fucking insane. It’s made me mentally and physically sick. I can’t clean up the mess. I can go to the doctor and have actually burst out of my phobia for a second to make appointments. I even have refills at Safeway to pick up! Quick shoutout on behalf of the world’s introverts to their website where you can make that happen online.
Juicing won’t untangle my brain, or “clean my room.” It won’t get rid of shit inside myself that should have been thrown in the trash long ago. The stronger I feel, the more I’ll feel like a fraud and fall into the pit of neverending self loathing.
The room.
Sorry for abruptly departing (“I HAVE ABANDONED MY BLOG!”), but I needed to. However, besides getting necessary nutrients when I was being diligent, I also broke the blogging seal, and that needed to happen.
Today is my birthday. I woke up to life itself, a roof over my head, and also an incredible care package from a friend of 20 years. It came with chia seeds, apple cider vinegar, coconut oil, pure cocoa, and instructions.
How in the world did I deserve any of that? SPOILER: I don’t. But I got it anyway.
Maybe I won’t ever figure out how to be a superhero, but I’m so grateful to my loved ones for letting me be a Harley Quinn who sometimes drinks produce. Seriously though, I will get back to it, just revamped. Thanks for supporting and/or lurking — I DID promise schadenfreude!
