Saturday, February 21, 2009

Where's My Iron Suit?

Sitting in a motel room on the Oregon coast. Mario is in his workshop. I'm watching TV. I almost drove home today. Three hours. Got stir crazy here. Depression takes away my ability to read or concentrate well. I'm having a bout of it. Been having it. Walked on the beach today before it started raining. Been so up and down lately that I feel like I'm on a weird kind of roller coaster. Either I'm heading for a breakthrough, breakdown, or some third option with the word break in it.

I've had some really tough times in my life. I've always figured out a way to get out of the tough time or walk through it or just survive it. This time I am out of ideas. This time it all changes so rapidly that I have no idea. Truly. The mind is a strange bedfellow.

Last night I dreamed Mario got a spine transplant. Now that was weird. And in another dream last night, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw this very short plump alien-looking person—like the Pillsbury doughboy without a shape. The image startled me so much that I snapped awake.

The first day I was here and I walked on the beach, I knew that I needed to let stuff go. I had to ignore my ego. I had to stop taking stuff personally. Just let it flow, baby. A grand redux revelation. That lasted about five minutes after I walked away from the ocean.

The next day I knew that I needed to just live in joy. Just have fun. Joy, joy, joy. All these people who try to suppress their emotions are denying their true nature. We are humans! We need to live passionately. Unfortunately my brain doesn't have the neural pathways for joy any more—if it ever did. So I supposed I needed to create new ones. I was determined. That lasted about three minutes after I walked away from the ocean.

I really think it's easier to save the world than figure out our own personal lives. And maybe it's useless. We each have our own personalities, bleak as some of them may be, and maybe those things we want to change are unchangeable, hardwired into our being the way the color of our eyes is hardwired. We can't change the color of our eyes. We can't change how tall or short we are. What makes us think we can change our minds?

I do know I feel better when the sun is out. I also know that if I have meaningful work, where the people I work with respect me, where I am paid decently, I feel much better. I absolutely understand those people who are desperate and sad because they've lost their jobs. I essentially lost mine 15 years ago when I got sick. I understand people who feel as though they are not part of the world. I feel great compassion for those people. I am one of those peeps many days.

I went on a meditation/journey to the Old Mermaids. For the first time, they told me they weren't going to tell me anything else until I became still. Until I could still my mind a bit. Wow. Did my faery goddessmothers really say that to me? That was a first.

And how to be still again.

Yes, well, there's the rub, eh?

It's too painful to be still. To sit in the silence.

For now I'll try to walk through it. Or curl up on the couch through it. I need sunshine. I need Vitamin D.

I'll try to figure it out by not trying to figure it out. I miss my mother. I miss my best friend. I miss the community I've never had.

Someone who should have known better told me last year that my problem was that I wasn't connected to the Divine. When she said this, I felt as though I'd been bitchslapped. How could I not be connected to the Divine, if indeed there is anything in existence that we can call the Divine? Wouldn't everyone be connected to the Divine if it exists, except maybe psychopaths or sociopaths? And I'm certainly not one of those.

But maybe she was right. I know the World is Divine. I know my sweet self is Divine. I know all that, but I ain't feelin' it, baby. I just ain't feelin' it.

I'm watching Iron Man now. I saw it at the theaters. Thought it was great fun. I like a decent action flick. Right now I'm waiting for the suit, for him to put on the Iron Man suit. He's injured, almost mortally wounded, and from this experience, he builds a protective suit. Nothing's gonna hurt him once he puts on that suit. Nobody's gonna see him, the true him, but they will see the suit and be glad that he's coming. That idea is so seductive, isn't it? We're not enough, just ourselves. So we put on so many costumes, so many facades, so many false faces. Let's pretend we're someone we're not and it'll all work out.

Or maybe our brains start to forget joy.

I dunno.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

How about daybreak, break-fast, breaking away, a well-deserved break, a breakout! Hang in there sweetie.....

By the way, you forgot the part when the Iron Man gets his heart ripped out. No suit of armor can prevent that, or prevent you from feeling. Do you really not remember a time when you felt joy, or is that just the myopic depression talking? Next time you're on the beach try to remember just one moment when the world made you gasp with awe or when you wished you never had to leave your lover's arms to eat Sunday breakfast. Joy may be fleeting, but its always just over the next rise. Even when the trail is exceptionally long and dark.
Much love,
Susan

Sage BrightHeart said...

My first thought was implosion and a break-in when I read your post. I so understand this limbo land you describe. I live in one of the sunniest places in the US because of my predilection for clinical depression and Northern California seemed to do me in.

It IS much easier to solve the problems outside of me than the ones inside of me. My barriers to my own happiness (which are largely removed anymore) took a long while to be tear down to reasonable size. And my eyes have changed color over the years. Amazing but true. Not radically, but from dark brown to a light brown, almost hazel.

The friend speaking about connection to the Divine: I know you have awareness of the Divine, but maybe you have a short in the connection, the flow back and forth, which, when it is flowing bestows spark and light, warmth and jangles, electricity and thoughts so fast I can't even type them quickly enough – that is some of what the connection feels like. Comfort and being held. That sense of being in the community instead of grieving for the community that I've never had (boy, I related to that).

Please do hang in there; this part of the cycle sucks, it is part of what makes us able to connect and relate to others.

Love in the times of limbo,
Sister Sage

Druid Lady said...

Sweet Kim, look in your malachite box to find your bliss - the part of your soul that sings to be alive. For me the way back to joy and connection to the Divine is to push myself and do something new. Which is why I'm sitting here typing this message with a "faux-hawk" & a green patch in my hair. Gotta do it. Keep the faith. You are in my heart. Rib crushing hugs and gentle, sunshiney rumbley purrs, Pat

Kim Antieau said...

Thanks to you all! Carry on, my wayward friends, and I shall do the same.

Cynthia said...

Hey Kim, i just wanted to pipe in with a quick note to say i understand. The whole vitamin D thing is legit but i have struggled with the same kind of malise for years. i won't go into my issues but i get that whole lack of committment to your insights and mantras.
What i really wanted to comment on was the person who told you that you were disconnected from the Divine. Bull-ticky!! That makes me so mad! i'm sure this person was well meaning (or maybe not) but they are full of it. You are the Divine, i am the Divine. Our mental and emotional struggles do not change that. Never!
Love you girl,
Cynthia

 
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