stalling...

I’ve been stalling, and my body has decided to help me along here. 

Thanksgiving was a big stall.  I could pretend that nothing ever happened, and I should get going on preparing and making the dinner, while working at a grocery store up to the day before Thanksgiving.

And then start getting sick the day after Thanksgiving.  Why?  Who knows?  Maybe it was because I had every minute planned for work or for shopping and cooking.  I was so tired on Thanksgiving, it’s a wonder things turned out OK.  I even had a friend over, and felt like I was half there the whole time. 

Although I was drinking copious amount of caffeine.  The cane sugar soda kind, with a few cans of the chemically ‘zero calorie!’ kind.  Culprit number two for the sick.  No caffeine since.

And the food, the food, the food.  Culprit three.

Then the next week, of being sick, being sicker, beong sent home from work because of how sick I was, and freaking out about letting down a friend in the performance we had planned on Saturday night.  A performance that, I think, went well, but I am not really sure, because of a weird empty feeling I felt right after, something I had never really felt after a performance.  This was immediately followed by a crushing agoraphobia, where I didn’t want to talk to people, I didn’t even want comments or looks thrown my way as I disappeared from that evening. 

I got home, and was just shocked.  Shocked at the way that I felt.  And really distressed at the feeling of emptiness.  I mean, to be fair, I was having misgivings about even performing.  I may have jumped into it too quickly, but it should have been fun,a nd great o do with the friend I worked with.  And there were many times when it was… up until the doing of it.

This empty feeling was also there when I went to a mens writing group, and they marveled at what I came up with for the writing prompts given.  Of course, I chalked it up to the ‘only positive comments’ rule of the group, and didn’t let that one in.  Empty.

Then a connection exercise that I just… couldn’t do.  I am still shocked at the disconnect, not only between myself and the person I want to trust and connect with, but with parts of myself, one screaming to just do the simple exercise, and another, big, deep fearful one that just wanted to get away.  Wanted to just stop, stop playing.  Its too aggressive, I don’t want to fight.

The sickness is easily understood.  And I of course, judge myself inappropriately for it.  Why can’t I just relax?  Why can’t I just let other people do things?  Let go?  What is my problem?

A comfortable state of stomping myself into the ground.

But a performance that felt empty?  Encouragement in my writing?  And a very obvious moment where I had to face the fact that I am making choices not to connect?

No, no, fuck no.  Unsafe.  Unsaaaaafe.  Backtrack, get to quick answers and solutions as to why this is happening, mostly about how much of a waste of life I am, and people are just trying to be nice.  No, not real.  Not honest.  Not telling the truth.  Just being nice, and hiding their disgust.  Their confusion.  Their frustration in having to deal with me.  OK, pure self judgement.  Now I’m back on solid ground here.

Am I?  Because as much as I want to explain not connecting, I’m still so confused, and feel like I’m sitting on top of something I’d rather not look at.  So, I’ll do everthing I can not to look at it.

So, stall.  Talk about what has happened, not what is happening.

I had a root canal seven, eight years ago.  One that has been giving me a bit of grief since I got it.  And, it decided to give me grief again.  Except this was real pain, pain that, looking  at that scale of pain management I am so very familiar with because of thyroid operations and hospital visits, made me understand what the numbers after five feel like. 

There is something so very special about a real toothache.  Sure there are a lot of stereotypes we laugh at, but, fuck.  It was fascinating how distress like this can make me forget anything has happened or will happen.  It distills me right down to the moment of this pain.  And then, going to the dentist, when the pain was down below the five again, how easily I was ready to flip flop, and say it was nothing.

But it was.  An abscess.  When dealing with something like a root canal, watch out for shopping around for the cheapest work.  Because something like this might happen.  Seriously.

Brings me to today, root canal for my root canal.  I don’t know what happened at the beginning, but I was losing my shit more than I ever have before.  It was like there was something missing in me hat could get me through this.  I continued to try to tell myself that I had been through this before, and It was going to be all right.  But something was sitting in the corner, flipping me off, and ready to scream and cry and flail because it had had enough.  ENOUGH.  OF.  THIS.  SHIT.

Anesthetic moments were over, and my body was vibrating, I was trying so hard to stay in control.  Then, after I couldn’t feel anything but the pressure of the grinding and spattering and digging, I was able to get through it.  When I checked the box for Nervous Disorders and Anxiety, I thought it was more of a description of current events than a reality.

Its like when I went to the dentist after being diagnosed last year, and the sweet, kind Japanese woman who does my cleaning showed me my dental history, and how she was now required to add cancer.  At that point I was still in my ‘must make this OK for others’ mode.  But the reality of that moment slapped me in the face.

Again, I wish I was well.  and maybe small things are happening.  But I’m stalling.  I’m stalling because there is some part of me that isn’t well, and not ready for the story to go positive.

And I have to honor it.  Because it has a better grip on reality than I do.