Thursday Came

I wanted to drop a quick(ish) line to thank you all for the support and love you've shown me over the past couple of weeks. I'm on an upswing and feeling loads better; I knew it would happen, but I just didn't know when.

When is now.

Since I am me and proudly a little bit of a cliché, I've been listening to some Coffee & Revolution by Glennon Doyle, and obviously it's been pretty validating. Validation lately for me, though, has been somewhat of an enemy; just in the sense that, for example, I didn't go back to therapy to get validated.

This is probably one of the reasons I haven't been back, besides the fact that life happened and I don't feel like walking out to the 105 and this therapist is at the beginning but I'm not at the beginning anymore...all that to say, I didn't go back to therapy to get validated. I went back to therapy to get shattered.

Shattered to reassemble, shattered to refocus, shattered to repurpose. 

But Glennon's validation is less of a mechanism of self acceptance (it is that, too) and rather more of a charged inspiration for me...mostly because, frankly, she reminds me of myself. 

For now, though, she's making me indescribably grateful. Obviously, though, I'm going to try and describe it anyway.

I'm grateful, and a bit less grumpy, to be in the season that I'm in. Grateful because she's out there doing all of this important inspiring work and I don't have to do it.

Not now, I mean. It may have been obvious to some of you that I've largely backed out of advocacy for the time being, at what seems to be literally the worst time in recent history to do so, but I've done it anyway. I have not done it unapologetically, but I am working on actively unapologizing. 

Because at the moment, I am in a season of peace, of mandatory rest. I often mention off-handedly that my life has never been easier, and this is relatively true. My life has never been easier because right now it isn't really real life, nor is it self-sustaining...but it isn't permanent. And since it isn't permanent, I am free to enjoy the vacation and I'd rather enjoy it than mess it up for myself by lamenting my lack of sustainability.

Despite my insecurities, I have successfully convinced myself that I'm somewhere in the right direction...mostly because of what is feeding and sustaining my heart.

Namely, appropriate things with respect to what I came to Iceland to do. My field, my studies, my project, my professional growth.

It may seem trite and insignificant, but the thing of which I am most proud over the past couple of weeks is the fact that I completed my computational physics project, and I did it correctly, and I did it during a time when I wasn't feeling well. More specifically, it was my solace; even more specifically, the fact that I could still do quantum mechanics was my solace. 

Because when I don't feel well, I can't always do all of the things that my brain has been able to do before. I had a sneaking suspicion that my brain has been long-term healing lately, because a few days before I returned to Iceland most recently, I could play piano again pretty well. I couldn't play a couple of years ago, not really. I couldn't play and I couldn't see and I certainly couldn't do quantum.

But now, I can. And arguably, I can do it better than I could before. I did the work from home during my productive hours, and I can't tell you how happy it made me and how relieved I was that my brain came back, that I came back. This season has been necessary for me to continue what I have always wanted to do; this quiet has helped my brain remember and rebuild and restore. 

I have never in my life been so grateful that my current call is not revolution, but rest. Don't be fooled, though; my rest won't stop the revolution.

It'll help sustain it later. 

My favorite thing. And yeah, they came on Thursday.

Tomorrow, Maybe Thursday

Sometimes, as some of you have told me, I am the person through whom you vicariously live. Today, though, I am the person who was in bed, sobbing at 2PM on a work day.

This is working from home.

Today, I finished an article about Prague (which, incidentally, is helping encourage me to plan for my trip to Prague next month) and sent exactly one glacier model run to the supercomputer. 

I haven't really made it any farther than that; I probably won't.

Today is one of those days during which I take every moment as molasses. Everything is intentional. I am coming out of an enhanced-hormone week and into a body-memorized trauma season. I know that this is the problem. I know this. I know.

I eat when I realize I need protein, or when I awaken to the fact that I'm really quite hungry. I do the dishes only because it would bother me if I didn't. I need to go to the store; I won't go to the store. We're on our last roll of toilet paper, but I won't go to the store. The store closes in an hour. I won't make it to the store. Somehow, having no toilet paper bothers me less than having piles of dirty dishes. One is an inconvenience, but the other is a metaphor.

I have a brain that is terrified of itself and feels this intensely, every so often, when it forgets that it's medicated. And this is torture. I know that this feeling will go away, but until then, it's thrice distilled torture. 

And it's irrational. It's not unfounded, but it is irrational. Specifically, I catch myself in my own contradictions, thanks to whatever amount of grace made it possible for me to have a decent memory. For example:

Actual Person From My Life: You are stewarding your life so well.
Me Right Now: I am a terrible steward of my resources.

APFML: You're so brave.
MRN: I am afraid of everything right now.

APFML: You are glowing.
MRN: I am melting.

In fact, the only thing upon which APFML and MRN would probably agree is the fact that my life is unstable and unsustainable. I'm pretty sure that all of us are aware of that; luckily for me, the life I'm currently living is very temporary. Maybe this instability is why people tell me that I'm brave, which is just another way of saying that they wouldn't be so ridiculous as to choose the life I've chosen. You can call it brave if you want to, but I am keenly aware that my so-called "bravery" requires familiarity with poverty and a strong tendency towards masochism. I get it.

Anyway.

Problem is that, maybe, I've healed down to the core. What remains is what has always remained. What's making me cry is what has always made me cry. What hurts is what has always hurt, and with every passing year during which no discernible improvement is made, it hurts again, and again, and again. 

And I don't know what to do. I have tried everything, within the boundaries that hold my safety in any regard. And I don't know what to pray. I have prayed...everything? Perhaps not, but I don't know what else to pray. 

It's an infinite loop without and endgame. 

But tomorrow, maybe Thursday, something will have changed in my neurochemistry and all of this will seem silly. I will be tougher on myself; I'll wonder why I've been acting so angry and irritated or have felt so devastated. I'll forget that it was torture in the moment and roll my eyes at the memory. And tomorrow, maybe Thursday, I'll be a bit more clear-headed and perhaps, hopefully, more productive. We'll see.

Tomorrow, maybe Thursday.