Write through it.
Turning up when it hurts.
I haven’t been sure wether to share the following excerpt of writing that came out a few nights ago but I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the best ways to combat fear is to do something that scares you. There was some kind of release in writing it at the least. If every season belongs in the fullness of life, then may we try to name and accept the hardest ones too.
I find myself trapped in my own thoughts. Tortured by simple tasks. A sense of groundlessness underlying everything I do. A fear of taking any step in any direction. Do others feel like this too? Plagued by the taunting shiny memory of their past self? I think of how in control I seemed not so long ago—but nothing is as it seems, so it seems. Control is the illusion every time.
Words don’t even turn me on like they used to. Instead they’re heavy and clenching like fists that never land a blow. They don’t serve their purpose anymore—to communicate. I can’t seem to communicate properly at all. The few proper sentences I form act only as shaky outlines of how afraid I feel to be in my body. I see the scrawl of anguish in my brow. I think about the pain it inflicts on others when they know I am in pain. I think about how I want to take away all the pain of the world and how I can’t even take a bit away for myself. I think of how lucky I am and yet the more I say it, the more rotten I feel. I think of how I want to write through it but I struggle to believe there is even a “through” to be found. What if I stay like this forever? Do others feel like this too? The horizon growing ever dimmer as each day is swallowed by last nights insomnia and the unforgiving light of morning with demands of a wakefulness I can’t summon?
Never say can’t. Never say never. Never say “this is me forever”.
My love, I know it feels like there’s no way out. But you will find your way. You are not alone, for I am with you. I can work with the little you have. The less there is, the more I can move and reassemble. You think you are dying but you are being reborn. Love is doing its work in the recesses of your heart. You have lost your previous coordinates on the map because I am taking you beyond that land. I will show you. Joy is coming. Trust.
I’m afraid to bee seen in these states of vulnerability. I don’t have a perfect way to explain myself or a neat and enticing way of arriving at some insight or reason as to why this is all happening. I have the faint voice of a loving Divine presence whispering the promise of renewal but it is so quiet that I can only catch it in the tiny intervals I get between 3000 racing intrusive thoughts.
I know someone else is feeling this and I know how hard it is to hang on when the dark nights of depression and accompanying anxiety make the world look like an entirely different place from the one you knew just weeks or months prior. I don’t have an answer but I do have the offering of company.
These are the moments I want to disappear from observation and not show up anywhere until the storm subsides.
The moments after the storm are much easier to write from. There’s ground to stand on, wisdom to share and new perspectives to draw from.
Writing from the storm is a lot harder and a lot scarier.
It doesn’t make any sense.
I don’t think it’s supposed to.
Maybe this is how we grow new senses. By being forced to acknowledge the limitations of the ones we’ve come to know so well.
Ps. A recent painting :
Recently, I'm finding it difficult to express myself publicly / socially. It's likely different in many ways from how you're feeling now, but I sense some similarities, too. What we need to remember is that liminal spaces can feel very vast and void, but they're transitional, bordering on all manner of other places where we might like to be. And that's often part of my problem, not knowing which direction to go from here, because each direction feels equally hopeful and hopeless. The shiny past self has dimmed, and awareness of the dimming feeds on itself, making everything less and less bright. The indecision about where to go from here only leaves us wandering in circles in the middle of a soul-draining limbo. So we pick a direction and go, because we must. Perhaps the direction will be a good one... as no option seems it would be the "right" or "best" one. But we can't stay where we are. So, yeah... Pick a direction and "write through it," as you say. It's got to be better than standing still. Thanks for the post, Kimbra. I always look forward to a word from you, even when I'm not in a place good enough to give a response. We're all in this together, and now is our time, so we should try and make the best of it, helping ourselves and each other the best we can, yeah? Cheers.
The in-between is so destabilizing, especially when the space has grown so large in our hearts things appear to be crumbling. The ego-mind jumps into hyper-vigilance mode in a frightened attempt to put the old pieces of our identity back together. But alas, the new is still being constructed on the scaffolding of our presence, our commitment to something beautiful, which is why we must turn our full attention to the soul and listen closely to the whispers, even if all we hear is not yet, don’t look at wings until they are ready. 💖