Good Treats Here
The kid is watching tv while building LEGO, the puppy is barking outside, and the husband is shouting at his computer which is shouting back at him, loudly, in the garage. I’ve turned off America’s Next Top Model and The Emerald podcast, stopped washing endless dishes before they were done, dried my hands, and walked down the hall, into the room I’m calling mine, shut the door, and seated myself with intent. Wow.
And now I’m sitting in the formerly white club chair, blanket on my lap, earplugs in. This is the spot. It’s on. I have forty minutes before my next thing and I was gonna pay bills but it’s been a week since I talked to you and it’s time. Past time, my friend and fan Jezelle chided me.
Even when I was single and childless and living alone, the hardest part of writing, for me, has always been sitting down. It’s especially hard on the days when it feels like perhaps there’s something that wants to burble up, to be let out of the pen, that I don’t want to feel. It’s not a good time to feel shitty or gloomy or suboptimal in any way right now, maybe next week or the week after or later this afternoon or never. How about never?
There’s so much coming up with the holidays and the pandemic and some 1200 year cosmic cycle my astro-y friends are going mad about. It would be much more convenient for that stuff, those feelings, to stay down. Stay in.
Of course, been there, done that, didn’t work. I know that if I feel it, let it come, fully, and then move through it, there will be treats.
Like Brownie has taken to running up to me and sitting at attention, unrequested, because she’s pretty sure that’s how to get the treats, I’m going in, really looking at, some old emotional pain. That’s where the treats are. The relief comes after the feeling it.
I’d prefer, on some level, to keep watching Top Model and buying black leggings, watching stuff, buying stuff, doing stuff, eating stuff. Going for those not-as-good treats. Anything to not feel that stuff.
I’d prefer to tell you about how Brownie the puppy found one of Ax’s fuzzy baby blue baby socks behind the clothes dryer and hid under the bed with it for an hour — So cute!!!
Or maybe the lovely way the ocean meets the sand at sunset all technicolor and how in one direction it’s all hot pink and peachy fluff fluff and bright blue sunshine and the other direction is all grey and dark grey purple palm trees and midnight mountaintops.
Yes let’s look at that pretty light, focus on shimmer glamour bauble dazzle, focus on gratitude, on joy and not on the loneliness of being alone in the dark trying to be quiet trying not to disturb anyone feeling like no one cares as long as I’m quiet and on track and doing everything right and appearing to be happy and okay.
But what if I am not happy? What if I am lonely, and scared, and not enjoying what I’m supposed to be enjoying and it feels like there’s no one I can tell and no one who would care anyway? What then?
Then I’d keep quiet, fake it, until I couldn’t anymore. And I did that, I’ve done that, and now I don’t.
I’ve learned how to ask for help without blaming others, how to be sad in front of someone I love and (mostly) not fear rejection. I’ve learned that when I’m tired I can choose to rest rather than push through and sometimes, a lot of the time, that’s a good choice.
I’ve learned it’s okay to be sad, to feel lonely, to feel scared, to be in the dark. To admit when I don’t feel on track or don’t like the track I’m on, and change it. To know and to confess that I have no clue and sometimes that’s terrifying and sometimes it’s liberating.
And I’ve learned it’s much nicer to feel all those things with someone else — the dark grey stuff and the hot pink stuff and the purple-y blues. All of it, the puke yellow green brown. Yes that too.
There are treats for doing it the other way, that secret, alone, push through it way. Those aren’t the treats I’m after anymore. I want the good treats, and they’re here, where I am, in this chair, this house, this life, the way it is.
And now I hear the puppy barking, the child calling, the reminder timer for that next thing, and I’ve told you the secret I needed to tell you: I used to be sad, and sometimes I still am, but today I’m not scared of myself or of those feelings or of telling you the truth, my truth. And it feels much better having done that, so thank you. I’m gonna keep going.
www.livingeveryminuteofit.com
www.combatcovidstress.com
