Harmony. Held above all else, this has been my goal. Perhaps it started even earlier, but I can source this back to at least 2008.
That fall is when I learned I was living with anxiety that had the opportunity to be crippling. In hindsight, some of my behaviors are tells, but I was oblivious to it until I ventured alone and into an environment that was completely out of my control. I didn’t affect it, it didn’t care if I was there or not, and ‘it’ [the rest of the world] was going to keep on spinning very quickly around me, whether I participated or not. At that time, I literally and figuratively stopped participating; I dropped out of college in Minneapolis-St. Paul mid-semester and I went back home. That’s the choice I made in order to cope. I didn’t have the skills to behave another way. I did ask for help and I tried out some new habits and mechanisms, but ultimately, I was already so far out of touch from the culture-shock, that I could only fall into a black abyss and hope to land somewhere down there. At that time, I didn’t even care if the place I landed had light. I was spinning so fast, my vision was blurred; I only hoped for it to stop.
When I finally landed, I was in my bed back at my parent's house. Only they had also moved in a matter of the weeks I had been gone. That did complicate things a bit in my head because even home looked different, but at least people can always create the construct of home when the right ones are near. In my bed, specifically, is the visual I have always had of safety. I could give you a detailed description of what that space looked like.
As I put my perception of life back together, like stacking a new wall brick by brick, I was so careful about its contents. I’ve been building a safe and harmonious temple to live inside of. In some ways, this was a place inside my head and in other ways, it’s been a very literal, conscious, physical establishment: the design of my home, the proximity of people in my social circles, the volume on the tv, the colors in my outfit. All of my choices, carefully crafted to situate things neatly, nicely, safely, calmly, quietly… harmoniously.
Life, of course, requires flexibility. If I was too rigid, that too would create angst, frustration, and other emotions that are not peaceful. It took quite a few more years to understand that flexibility was part of the equation. I still overlook this at times, desiring to be more in control in order to feel at ease. The rationale being that control = security = the ability to ward off the spins (anxiety) and hold myself through depressive valleys.
Enter: a career. Something I always wanted in my life, badly. Success in the workplace meant opening up, displaying my skills to others, sharing opinions, making conscious choices about my speech and my body language. Being respected, being liked, being coachable. The list goes on. I had to learn to be willing to live out loud and engage with a winning team at work.
Enter: the man who becomes my husband. In order to do life with someone else, we cannot live only inside ourselves. To share, to walk together, to communicate, to finish projects – to be a team – would require living in a mutual, common space, both physically and mentally.
Enter: babies, who also become toddlers, and other things with every day that passes. Pffff. All constructs of control are given up to God. It’s probably what finally broke me completely…
So, here I am. Again, finding a way to ‘be’ in the world; Asking myself to define and refine my beliefs and core values, while the rest washes over me. Letting the world around me, with all of its complexities, its people, and its controversies, rise and fall over my beach like the tide. I can only stand in who I am, even if it’s on sand.
Comments