life collection

Spending the afternoon at my desk reading poems I wrote years ago and painting here and there. Its weird when I look at all the things I have written, the lists become masked corpses of old plans I had to get my life on track. Somehow it just clicks sometimes--list or not.

Right now life is sort of clicking. I am not in a deep depression. I would say I am melancholy, but I think that is just normal for me. The main thing I am struggling with these days is stress. I have so many side effects from this. My nights are filled with horrible nightmares (I mean horrible). I constantly have a tummy ache. I just can't slow down, can't calm down, can't rest. I feel like when I rest the monster (depression) comes back, so I have to keep going, going, going to keep it away.

This isn't true, but I can't convince myself that resting is good for me. Not to say I don't "rest", in fact, I took a nap today, but there is a difference between napping or sleeping and actually resting. Resting for me is a process of letting go of control, letting go of my hold on things. This letting go thing worries me. I have always had to have some control of my life, something that I could do or not do to keep my life my own, no matter how small.

I'm realizing this doesn't serve me as I do have so much control over my life now that I'm a grown-up. I'm not a slave to anyone or anything, I am free to be myself. But I can't let go of that little snow globe of habits I hold onto to keep me feeling safe.

The nasty trick is: I have to let it go to get to feeling truly safe, to get to a real freedom, to get to be myself. No more of this trying to fit into kids clothes, or live in the shadow of the past. Now its time to move on, but god-damn is it hard.