Yesterday was an odd day. I woke up to a temperature of -3° Fahrenheit & a heater that was struggling mightily to heat the rest of the house. My husband & I decided to spend most of the day in our upstairs bedroom where the heat from the sun would be captured & our flannel-covered bed could help keep us warm.
It was like a snow day without the snow; a sick day without actually being ill. We went nowhere, camped out with a bunch of books & busywork, & indulged our cat as he stretched more & more across the width of the bed. But this is not really what was odd.
What was odd to me was the relative quiet within myself. I’m a jittery person that is constantly pacing & trying to figure out what to focus on first, because there are always so many things I must be neglecting or forgetting to do. And I’m still that person to a certain extant, but with the recent PTSD treatments I’ve had have turned a lot of that interior noise way down. I still felt some guilt over choosing to do almost nothing for the entire day, but I was able to do it with the emotional mudslide. I could answer the question, “What about. . .” with a common shrug & let the thought alone.
I don’t know if I’ll ever really stop fighting myself—that constant tension between what I want & what I think I’m supposed to do or what I think others think I’m supposed to do has been with me so long. Anticipate, defend, escape, repeat. But yesterday was the growing proof that the tone could change, that a different balance could be found. And that insight is such a small, powerful thing that it scares me too because it is too dear to be lost.
But the fear is not the stronger emotion; what prevails is the wonder & the hope for the future.
