Hard Reset
I had the words two days ago. They swept into my mind; line after line formed and never met my hands. The override happens less. Those days in which full stories formed within and then found their place on paper — like possession — they don’t happen…until the other day. Then I lost it, shoved it aside.
The creative mind is just a daydreaming mind if it doesn’t form art. I can attempt to find the metaphor, retrace my steps to that point. I found myself back in the space of displeasure at work after being quite pleased with the transition. The other shoe drops, and I am back to remembering I forgot my passion. A culmination of discontinuing medication, unhappiness at work, stress with my son, and difficult decisions resulted in this depression. I would be ok with the lethargy if it didn’t make me feel like I’m a lazy waste. There’s this blockage where I can’t see the point. I don’t get pleasure from these mundane tasks. I don’t get pleasure from much. Others expected a different person out of me, and I am at fault for being who I am and not what was projected on me. The secrets I hold. I can longer entertain others with my crazy stories because they have piled up to the point that it makes me look like a liar. I did not come here to talk about this, but here I am. Complaining.
A few weeks after losing Dani I forgot all the newly established prices at work. I reverted to the old prices. This is common after trauma. Memory loss. It’s like the mind does a data restore as computers can after a virus or malware attack.
Where are my words? The feelings are not connecting to my poetry. I cannot find the words. I just laid it all out. Not poignantly.
I’m not connecting with the artist within. Cannot connect. Connection lost. Searching for signal. If I lost all that data, one would hope that the space could be filled with joy. It seems to me it becomes a dark, dismal protective space. Firewall. Nothing in. Nothing out. I am not a computer. It doesn’t restore my heart. The download remains despite my mind’s reflex to protect. So, I continue with this faulty hardware, endlessly troubleshooting. EMDR seems like the closest to a data wiping I can receive. The time and energy it takes to maintain these drives — it’s obsolete. Manufacturer settings. How did the Lord originally form me, without all of this? Yet, it’s all His plan. I am supposed to be as a child of God. How ironic is it that I am immature like a child frequently despite that I stopped being a child at 8? Yet, the joy of a child is the aim.
Some would say get a new computer. There is not another life. There is not another mind. There is not a another me. Even web-enabled computers are hooked up to the same internet. I cannot compute, cannot process efficiently with all these corrupted files spurned from the outside and further destructive from my own lack of maintenance. It gets so tiring — existing.
I will not lie and say I am not lonely or bored. It’s just what I find when I go out and do something about those feelings. Trouble loves me and makes me look like a liar further. I laugh to myself sometimes at all the hard and bizarre scenarios I’ve gotten myself into. I sometimes miss the thrill. But the price I pay and the price my son pays is too much. Peace does not have to equal boredom, but my war inside says differently. Large parts of my psyche were formed in dysfunction and drama. Then what was left of me went into box of grief. Chaos or nothing. The pendulum swings — like that poem I wrote him. T
The frustration grows with myself when I cannot appreciate the good days. It don’t think it comes from thinking the other shoe will drop. It comes from something stunted within me. This child within me had the joy stolen from her, the capacity to fully feel it. I’m not here to rehash it all. I’m here pondering what to do about it. I don’t need to evaluate for the 100th time the trauma. It happened, and here I am still struggling, still getting back up and going with an arm outreached behind me stretching back decades to her. I have accepted I most likely will have to work on this for the rest of my life, but what is the point where you just accept that this is just good enough? Or maybe that is more of my trauma talking, saying I’m not good enough?
But it’s a deeper good enough.
It’s the difference between surviving and thriving. I suppose what thriving looks like to an individual is the only factor. From outside, some may have varying negative and positive views of my success. They don’t matter. What matters is what I say is enough. I have not retrieved enough of me yet to do the things I want to do with my life, to feel the feelings I want to feel in this life. But I could always just say screw it, and go live the wild life I’ve grown accustomed to with no regard to further trauma and destabilization. Maybe after my son’s grown… It’s really to that point: embracing instead of fighting. Today, the depression won the battle and tomorrow the free-spirited apathy could. Probably not, though. I win the war. The little girl wins the life she wanted and the positive adventures the world can bring.
