Where the time goes

A melancholy has settled this week. It’s just sort of hovering around, following me like Eeyore’s little personal rain cloud, drizzling on my head. Unrelenting, but not torrential. I know exactly where it came from, but I’m not up to hashing out the introspective vomit here—it’s too deeply rooted, winding around everything I am like brambles, sharp and suffocating all at once.

The urge to get into bed and never get out again is pretty strong, all things considered.

My body is rebelling. For a year now, I’ve woken up with my right jaw joint out of place, needing to be popped back in before I can function normally. There’s a fracture in my night guard on that side. My dentist’s jaw hit the floor when he saw it the other week, and I suggested that perhaps I turn into the Hulk in my sleep. It’s a possibility. My left trapezius feels like a steel bridge cable and is so tightly wound that my left arm—which doesn’t need any help doing this, thanks very much, it does it on its own just fine—is sitting far enough away from where it should be that if I move or sleep incorrectly it finds its happy partially-dislocated spot and takes up residence there instead. Everything from my mid-back up is tighttighttight. I know it has to do with stress levels and ::gesticulates wildly at the universe and all its nonsense::, and I know that eventually it will pass, but for now I’m existing in a permanent state of “Ow”. You’d think I’d be slamming back Advil like Skittles, but I’m not. The discomfort reminds me that I am, in fact, alive and able to feel…anything, really.

Everything feels heavy. And I finally caved and bought a weighted blanket. How’s that for irony?

And somehow time has sped up. I realize that this is a physical impossibility, but it seems to be passing at an alarming pace, and I don’t know where it’s going, and I know I’m not filling it the way I could or should, but that part doesn’t bother me as much as the rate at which weekends seem to come—and go. It’s all a blur, a fog, nebulous in how it shifts and floats, adhering to no one’s agenda but its own. We mark the passage, count the days, stumble blindly onward. It’s all we can do, really.

I’m leaning into this because fighting it will only wear me out.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. We’re all in the same boat right now—we’re just on different decks. I’m on a lower one at the moment. I’ll move when I’m good and ready. For now, I’m going to put on my “Low” playlist and have every sad song I own piped into my ear, one, after the other, after the other…

It’s okay not to be okay.

It’s okay to treat yourself gently.

The sun will still come up tomorrow.

Fairhaven Convention: Who Knows Where the Time Goes?