the freeze-thaw cycle
from yesterday, written around 3pm.
I’ve started to unthaw from a freeze.
I started to freeze last week. It was a slow freeze, like a lake freezing over for winter. I tried to keep moving. I knew that the freeze was happening and alerted those around me that I would be moving slow. But the freeze moved a bit faster than I had expected.
Sunday night I froze. Monday I was frozen solid. I moved but barely.
I moved from the bed to a closet in the other room. I brought my pillows and blanket and lay in the closet for hours. I do this at times.
I lay in closets when the world feels too much. Too fast, too big. It makes me feel small. Makes me feel safe… well safer.
Again Tuesday I was frozen like a block of ice. I began to thaw a bit around midday, but still I did not thaw that much. I went into the closet again but for a shorter time. I ate more and moved a bit more around the apartment. But again not by much.
I quit my job today. I am thinking of quitting my mma training as well.
Relieving myself of the obligations I have seems to have worked a bit in unthawing me.
I ate real food for the first time since… since Sunday I think. I was essentially eating creatine and oatmeal with protein powder for the past four days. I made some lentils and brown rice. It tasted good; I think because it’s the only other type of food I’ve eaten in a while.
I don’t want to work anymore. I’ve had my fill.
All I’ve really done working (like all the other times I try to work) is lose money. I put on a mask that allows me to get there. To show up and to participate. But it costs a lot energetically; and I overeat and overspend and over-everything trying to maintain it.
I always leave these “work” stints in worse financial positions than I start.
It makes me sad because it makes me think/feel that there is something wrong with me. I know it’s not true. I know it is the structure of the machine. It doesn’t work for a lot of people. I don’t think that is controversial to say.
Or maybe it is…
Fuck.
At least I ate food today. At least I spoke to another human being today. At least I am writing and thinking today.
I wish I could go to work and not feel like it was killing me. I wish I could go to work and not complain. I wish I could go to work and just listen to the instructions and do the task and then sit back and rest.
I would like that very much. I would love that very much.
So many of the problems I bring to myself would be erased. So many of the conflicts in my life wouldn’t even start. So much of the self-loathing and pain and shame would be relieved.
Ugh. Oof. Grunt.
Maybe it has to do with alignment. Or more so misalignment. The mask appears when the task I am doing is misaligned. Misaligned with a value or a goal or something deep within.
It is not right to wish this compass away; sure life would be easier but it would be wrong.
It would not be real.
It would be someone else.
It would not be me.
I guess more so I need to learn how to listen to this compass. And adjust course sooner. There is less crashing when I adjust in time. Less burnout, less fallout, less bridges left burning in my wake.
But I set course and I do not want to change my course. It is hard to change course. It is difficult to subtly adjust. It is challenging to talk to the people who I say one thing to one day but need to change what I mean the next. It is hard because communication is hard and it is hard because not everyone wants to be in a relationship like that.
Ad one part of me knows I need to accept this in myself. And another still resents it in me. And one part craves to conform; to slip invisibly into the masses. And another knows that was never for me.
And one part of me basks in the grandeur of this sentiment; the individual, the rogue, the one against all. And another cringes at the costs. Is nauseous to be seen. Is sick to be different. Is aware of the danger of being different. Or at least, dreams about the dangers of going against the grain.
And there is a split.
And I don’t know which is the right path. I just know I oscillate between the two.
And maybe that is my life. And maybe there is a middle. Or maybe one day a less winding path will appear but maybe the volatile path is my path.
Maybe those who want the smooth path should get off now.
Maybe wanting the smooth path was someone else’s dream. Some ideal dream.
Maybe life’s path was not meant to be smooth.
Maybe life’s path for me was meant to be everything but that.
Maybe this is my path. And trying to map it was a fool’s errand from the start.
The path will only be clear after I have walked it.
And will it be clear even then?