the buzz of Happy People’s lives

Sometimes my brain tells me I am incapable of getting dog food for Tipper and so it sits, dauntingly, at the top of my list as I panic-fear, mentally ticking off the minutes until I have no choice because she must eat and the bag is empty. And I pick it up and nothing changes except now I have dog food (good) and I’m out $40 (neutral). I can’t run to the post, I cannot pick up carryout for One, I can’t drop in last minute; any trivial errand I have not meticulously planned in advance tends to freeze me. Until inevitably, the errand gets done and I’m level until the next one, the memory that It Won’t Be So Bad no where to be found.

Yet, ironically, I spent a lot of time last summer, and just up to the beginning of this one, really, avoiding time alone at home. Home meant a lack of distraction. Going out meant I could make my brain fuzzy and maybe see someone to say Hello to and at the very least, hear the buzz of Happy People’s lives being lived around me. I did not know how to sit with myself, exist in my own company, understand the person I was as an individual for the first time in seven years.

Lately, I have made an effort to make note of mundane moments. Ones I love simply, and love for myself - the moments that stir up feelings. The ones that remind me that baking bread is an act of love, even if you have no one else there to serve it to. Set a plate on the counter and let the milk drip. Let the mess sit for a minute longer than what you’re comfortable with. A brief relief, an on-a-whim realization that it will all get done - whatever, everything - it will.

Accepting exhaustion because we must find time to stop. Drinking magnesium for a good night’s sleep. A cracked window because the air is crisp and I feel clean. Lighting candles in the dark corners of my room. Vulnerability and recognition that I don’t know, but I’m trying. Loving a million people in a million different ways. Sinking into something soft. Sitting being still.

I am in, yet again, another state of change (it really is one after another) and while I recognize I am no good at having it all figured out, I’m leaning into it and letting things be what they are - and this feels like growth.

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