Seeking the unstuck

It has been a difficult start to this year, at least according to the January 1st new year. I’m hoping that today’s start of the lunar new year is a little more auspicious. But to recap:

I’ve moved and started a new job. I love my new job. I REALLY love my department and co-workers and the college where I work. It’s a dreamy environment. I’m excited to do work that matters.

My mom died last October, and we had a funeral, and I’m still full of grief. Her birthday is at the end of the month.

I’m getting divorced, and it’s amiable, and we’re staying great friends, but it’s a big change for us both, and I’m grateful beyond measure that we can walk each other through it. The divorce hearing is at the end of the month, the day after her birthday.

Our dog has developed some medical problems. He was tested for Cushing’s disease today, and he has surgery next week to remove a mass on his penis. Yes, this is absolutely absurd and horrific at the same time. All of this is also very expensive.

Our 18 year old cat, Steve, died in his sleep, and Travis picked out a beautiful spot in the yard to bury him. He did an amazing job taking care of Steve in his last weeks, and I’m really sad that Faber and I didn’t get to see him at the end.

And a few other sundry things have come up, which haven’t been great.

Earlier this month, the Walk for Peace, and the Venerable Monks from Texas made their way through my city, and I was able to walk with them to city hall. I was able to see them the next day, too, as they walked to DC (where they were noticeably not welcomed by our sitting President). And their walk, their journey, was something beautiful and precious that made me realize that in the past few months, I haven’t made much forward progress.

To be clear, this is okay. I’m not upset about it. I’ve been in a time of wintering, of hibernating and processing, of grieving and adjusting. This is not a time for forward progress.

But that time is coming. And in my wintering, I am getting stuck. I am scrolling too much. I feel the fragments of my attention strewn about me. I feel my brain shifting into a search for distraction, for dopamine, for comfort. I can’t keep my hands off my phone. I can’t focus. I can’t sink into any one thing. I’ve watched endless episodes of the West Wing, and I can’t sit and watch an entire episode without pausing, getting up, texting, playing a game, checking my email, checking social media, or cleaning something. I have no unbroken time. I constantly break my time, and in doing so, I feel my brain reshaping itself into something that can no longer swim in the deep end of the pool. And I’m worried that soon I’ll lose my ability to swim altogether.

As someone who has been on the internet for a very long time, it’s so strange to feel the effects of brain rot. And yet here we are. Because nothing has opened the door to brain rot wider for me than grief. If you’ve watched Shrinking, I’m Jimmy, but instead of hookers and cocaine, I’ve gotten stuck on my phone.

It’s not that I don’t know how to be sad. I’ve survived a major clinical depression. I’ve grieved and lost some really amazing people that I have loved immensely (and I think about them every day). I’ve grieved the complicated grief over the death of my father and the loss of relationships that are more toxic than beneficial. But this sadness, it’s so pervasive that it’s like I was the one who was buried in November, instead of my mom.

I live with sadness like a shadow. I wake up, walk my dog, go to work. I notice the sunset over the river when I drive home over one of my favorite bridges, and the colors fill me with light. I walk my dog again, do schoolwork, watch the West Wing, go to dance class, make dinner, read, run, clean, hang pictures, play CrossPlay. I do things. I seek joy. I am not without resources. But somehow, in all of this, I scroll and scroll and scroll and every moment that isn’t active is filled because nothing is as important as not being alone with the sadness.

I have never known life without my mom. I’m pretty sure I hate it.

But it’s only been four months.

There’s a wonderful poem by Galway Kinnell called “Wait.” And I’m going to post the entire thing here, because I keep it on fridge, and I think of it often.

***************************************************************

Wait, for now.
Distrust everything if you have to.
But trust the hours. Haven’t they
carried you everywhere, up to now?
Personal events will become interesting again.
Hair will become interesting.
Pain will become interesting.
Buds that open out of season will become interesting.
Second-hand gloves will become lovely again;
their memories are what give them
the need for other hands. The desolation
of lovers is the same: that enormous emptiness
carved out of such tiny beings as we are
asks to be filled; the need
for the new love is faithfulness to the old.

Wait.
Don’t go too early.
You’re tired. But everyone’s tired.
But no one is tired enough.
Only wait a little and listen:
music of hair,
music of pain,
music of looms weaving our loves again.
Be there to hear it, it will be the only time,
most of all to hear your whole existence,
rehearsed by the sorrows, play itself into total exhaustion.

*************************

I know that I am waiting. But I need to wait without rotting, and I’m currently rotting. It’s a tough balance, to wait, to stay active, and receptive, and open, and not wither away into the endless scroll. Waiting is hard. And patience has never come easily to me. But I’m trusting the hours. I’m trying to listen to the music. I’m trying to put down my phone. And eventually, one morning, I will wake up, stretch my wings, and remember how to swim.