So yesterday...
I brought myself to a place of calm in the morning. Sincere calm, was able to eat breakfast and feel joy in my apartment. To convince myself that I do know a sincere peace in the world. And I think, on some level I do; I feel that I have a genuine spiritual connection to the world - to nature and my place in it.
But, the day was almost immediately tainted with anxiety. I had to move my car in order to avoid a parking ticket shortly after breakfast (I live in an urban area with two hour day-time street parking). I was incredibly anxious, because I live right across from a police station and my car is uninspected. (I have neglected to get it inspected because I'm anxious that it won't pass, and that I'll have to deal with the repercussions of that)...
It's such a little thing, but it throws me into this awful panic. I can't tell whether the anxiety is an excuse to exercise the addiction - though it seems that I'm putting myself in 'real' jeopardy (in terms of getting a ticket, etc.)
I'm afraid of other people, afraid of spending time in the house when my roommates are home. Afraid of being confronted, afraid of offending somebody.
I feel like a scared animal, that failed to build a safe nest or grow a safe shell. And so this perpetual action of B&P is the equivalent of throwing myself into the sea. If I can't save myself, then let the ocean - let the wildness - take me. But why do I think that I can't protect myself, can't look after my (very basic, pragmatic) well-being?
Late at night, I'm tossing and turning. It's always when I'm sleeping that I feel I've reached a size too small, that bones are bothering other bones. That I'm weak and wiry and thirsty.
I seemed to be getting the beginnings of a UTI yesterday, and felt that the discomfort inhabited my whole body - that illness was capable of taking a new and all-prevailing presence in me, one quite different than the spot it takes when I am healthy. At work, I feel distant and only half-present, not quite able to tether my mind to things.
I woke up with a strange blister on my hip, haven't had my period in eight months... etc.
I want, but don't know how to be healthy. I wake up at five AM and make myself some oatmeal, out of necessity. Only if I eat, will I be able to sleep. I am out to breakfast. Eating an egg white omelet, spinach, home fries. It's not that I'm afraid of the food, but of the feeling of digesting. Of having something that I'm making mine, something in jeopardy of being taken away.
If I were able to stay home and listen to records and straighten my apartment and make my sister a birthday package, without the addition of my panicked actions, then I would feel so proud and happy. Just for the simplicity of taking care of myself and taking actions on my behalf, not those that work against me.
My grandparents are coming to town this evening, and we're eating at the restaurant where I bartend. There's no part of me that even considered keeping the food I eat.
My goals for today are becoming:
- to keep this breakfast as my nourishment until going to my mom's (to do laundry and meet my grandparents) at 3/4ish
- to enjoy myself in care-taking activities in my apartment until I leave
- to order dinner that feels clean and healthy, to eat it slowly, and to keep it, savour it
Please share any advice you may have for helping me get from one moment to the next. Because it is every fiber in my body that is going to want, each moment, to find 'safety' in emptiness and familiar gestures.