Via email, I read my beloved’s editorial comments on my last blog.

Pixabay free photo

Honey,
I like this blog but from my perspective it needs something more.
It stays at the same level. It needs a peak or a dip.
There’s a polarity between the the anxiety and the peace but in my humble opinion I think there needs to be more tension between these two.
I like the ending and the word wrap.
I hope this is helpful.
Love,
Christopher

At first I laugh it off thinking, oh silly Christopher thinks he knows about my writing. But then I think maybe I should care. After all, my feedback has helped his songwriting. Tension burns in my belly. He said my blog didn’t have enough tension. Jesus. I’ve been awake since 2 in the morning grappling with the stress in my life. I can hardly garden in peace I’m so stressed out. I find myself fighting with our fucking fucked up hoses instead of savoring my time in nature. I’m frustrated. No, that was not fucking helpful feedback. And by the way, Fuck off!

So these are my two extremes: To peacefully not give a shit what he says and be irate. Given that he might actually know something and have good suggestions, might there possibly be another way to respond than either? I hold my stress deck of cards like babies in my arms. The queen of hearts runs around dictating, while the jack makes fun of people behind their backs. All the even numbers yell that disaster is near, while the odd ones just look for ways to be odd. A Course in Miracles has helped me to hold them in my arms and see them as mine rather than thinking they are the world. But they’re still a lot to manage, you know? I can laugh at my ego, but my body doesn’t laugh. Its adrenaline shoots higher. It doesn’t know any way but fight or flight.

So there’s your polarity, sir, delivered up on a silver platter of sass. Was it worth it? I’ve lost another year off my life due to uncontrollable stress. Thankfully, bliss is also uncontrollable. If I can somehow, against all warning signs, trust in this life, it will unfold with grace and turpentine. I’m going to think of me in the washing machine and God running the agitation cycle. I know that’s not how God rumbles, but it will help me to trust the turbulence. And honestly, crash or soar, what choice do I have?

I walk around the house cursing and angry despite all my best intentions for peace. I laugh because I feel hope — a sunny day in a backyard with breezy linens on the line. Against all odds, I feel it might just all be okay. Maybe I’ll even go for splendid. Do I hail Orpheus in asking for joy?

by darksouls1 on Pixabay

Everything wriggles together in my one taut frame, my throat and neck rigid with all the might of the white-knuckled heroine, hellbent on powering through anything. I take this hurling woman, tendons blaring like sinews, in my arms. She struggles, thinks I’m attacking her. How am I supposed to help her or any of us, Jesus? God? I really don’t understand. I type through welling tears. Why did this life not come with any fucking operating instructions? Why does it always feel like we’re failing, no matter what? I can’t do it anymore. It’s too much. I feel like I’m going to die. Can’t I just recover? Isn’t there ever any time for me where nothing’s happening and it all feels safe and I can laugh in the sunshine?

God waits on the other side for me to have tea. But it doesn’t help me in the here and now. The fact it’s darkest before the dawn makes no difference to the darkest. I’ve never had anything to offer this life besides my intense emotions, and they are too much for me. I don’t know how to help anyone else when I feel like I’m going to die from my own churning. Teach me how to lighten up, Dear God. Please. I’m scared out of my mind a lot of the time. I always have been. No wonder I haven’t achieved more, done more, been more brilliant. I’m scared to walk out the front door. I’ve always been just this much of a mess and I’m sorry.

Headstones I’ve considered:

She tried. She really, really tried.

She tried too hard.

I feel one dawning.

She should have just sat still. Then nothing bad could have ever happened to her.

The world kills me. I’ve never been able to take it. How did Jesus or Dr. King or Mahatma Gandhi do it? I’ve always had my plate full just trying to be a good mom, to contribute something.

I am not great. But I feel things all the way through. That’s all I’ve ever had to offer anyone. And it’s more than I can bear. When I was little, my friends told me about a cat my friend Sally’s mom had found: It had obviously been drug behind a car until it died. I thought about the cat for weeks. One day, Sally said, “Sara, what’s wrong?” I said, “I’m still thinking about that cat.” “Sara!” she said, the others nodding, like “Good grief. What’s wrong with you? Why haven’t you moved on?”

I wish I’d been self-possessed enough to say what I really thought, which was “Why have you been able to move on?” These same friends later joined with new girl to our class to bully me. I guess the writing was on that wall.

Everything wrong with the world is contained in that cat. And I’m still trying to learn how to lighten up and move forward. It’s never been a strength, until right now. I flex my muscle. It’s a tiny bicep, but it moves as though mighty. We each must begin with who and where we are.

 

Wiki: The Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles, Sandow lifting 1894