Monday, April 11, 2011

Day Dread

I've been wondering, of late, as to why I blog. Why I read blogs, why I read, why I do anything, really, at all, as it all feels like it amounts to naught. I mean, not naught, but just...let's just say I've had a case of the hopeless-nesses and I can't shake it. Recent circumstances would point to this being entirely normal. The thinking part of me who knows how good I have it rejects this feeling of self-pity.

I've titled this angst 'day dread', where I lie, in the morning, in bed, exhausted, despite how many hours sleep I've managed to get. And I think about the day ahead. And I don't want to do usually even ONE of the tasks that lies ahead of me, until I somehow shake it off, get myself upright, and somehow try to meet life halfway, even though most times lately, it feels like life has driven a semi into the side of my consciousness.

Back to my original thought. I've stumbled, (truly, stumbled) onto some incredible writing on this thing called the internet. They are not books I hold in my hands, lamplight peeking over my shoulders, curled up in bed; they are not stories told by faceless people whom I will never meet, or even KNOW. They are often real stories. Heartbreaking ones.
People who've lost children. Others who've lost their way of life and are trying hard, with whatever tools they have, to re-build. And make no mistake--for me, with my fear and loathing of change, re-building is something that inspires dread in me. Real stories relate to worrying about money and worrying period. About everything. Work. Family. Trying to keep it all together. To trying to find love, elusive and wispy as air. Trying to act like the adults that we are, out in the world, trying to look like we have it all together, while inside, we're patching it up with tape.

Lately most of my writing has to do with notes I make myself on pieces of lined paper. I staple people's contact info that I've scribbled on scraps onto said pieces of paper. I use post it notes not as reminders, but as whole documents of information. I summarized the last conversation I had with my father's oncologist onto a medium-sized yellow post-it. I took the notes while sitting in my office, at my desk, several weeks ago. My writing is neat, block-lettered, arrows connecting the information the way I do when I make notes in meetings. As always, when I take these kind of notes that I have been in recent weeks I close my door over, take a deep breath in, and deal with the wave of day dread. It DOES pass.
Maybe that's why I blog. Somehow, these thoughts must get out. I don't always verbalize them. The exhaustion of the feeling, whether it be valid or not, that I must deal with everything, right now, and how overwhelmed I'm left. There are neglected friends whom I've not seen for weeks. There is the feeling of me of not wanting to see anyone. Some people become more social in times of angst, it helps them meter it; for me, not so. More solitude. More sleep. More private worry, worry I don't share, can't talk about it, people would think me nuts, or so I muse.
Do other people have this level of disquiet? Authors seem to be able to work it out with their books. But bloggers, those like me, writing, in some cases, to no one, to themselves, and others to an audience of thousands, do seem to experience a higher level of angst which perhaps propels them to the online journal format. Don't get me wrong. I can judge with the best of them--there is some poor writing out there.

But there are also unbelievable levels of insight in the midst of the monotony of our habits and routines, the things we do all the time, that everybody does. Picking up the mail. Driving to the store. Cooking meals. There is brilliance in the depths of the deep pools of our lives, those subjects we avoid, for the most part. The dark-hearted parts, the mistakes we make, not meaning to, that often twist the path we are on. All I can do is keep walking.

1 comment:

  1. So many thoughts. So many ring true.
    From my experience, even if you are frightened you must walk on!
    Thanks...

    ReplyDelete