sometimes when i sit down to write a blogpost, i think to myself nothing particularly amazing happened this week. nothing terrible. nothing amazing. i bumped from place to place. i created some routine. i worked out a bit. i ate ice cream cake for dinner.
those little happenings, those little dots of everyday things...we draw line between them and we have living. we have a life.
i often write posts after something big has happened emotionally. i don't often write just because i had a week that was...a week. i wasn't down in the dumps, but i also wasn't over the moon happy. i was somewhere in-between. my emotions went back and forth, but they weren't ever too much. they just were.
the line was smooth. the dots were small.
my assumption has been that i don't write then because it would be, well, boring. this blog probably teeters on the edge of TMI anyway so i avoid it.
but what if i avoid writing about them because i don't know how to handle the smooth line, the small dots?
for a while now, i've noticed my discomfort with "small dot" weeks. i don't know what to do with them. i look for complications. today i found myself reading articles on starting companies and then i felt inadequate for not having blackbird delight fully where i want it to be and then i wondered why i couldn't just be a stylist and write a blog and be successful that way. i could feel my mood beginning to dip and i could feel my brain bringing in more ammo -- i began to worry about my solo show, about whether i am following my calling, about how clean my apartment is, about my codependent tendencies... and then i realized what was happening: it was as though my brain needed to make up shit to be upset about.
dammit, brain. really.
just being content is a struggle. i don't really know how to accept good things and just say thank you and enjoy. i don't really know how to just be happy with the calm. i am always looking for the storm.
sometimes when you know the storm so well, the blue sky can be uncomfortable. sure it is beautiful, but so is the thunder and lightning. and when it is pouring outside, you know what your job is. you know what to do to protect yourself and others. you know when to evacuate and you know when to shelter in place. maybe people come to rely on you for that information. maybe that begins creating your reality. maybe the extra adrenaline becomes the drug you need to survive so when the sun comes back out, you are lost. your role is gone. you are in withdrawal.
sometimes i feel this way. sometimes i feel my soul doesn't know what to do in the sun because it is so comfortable with the storm.
i also recognize that i may not know how to sit and be content because i have enough trouble figuring out how i feel in any given moment. maybe i don't know how to just enjoy because i would have to let the emotion flow through me and right now i have such a blockage (due to not ever letting other emotions out) that it will take a breakdown to clear it all. see last week's post for reference.
the small dots, the weeks we bump from place-to-place...these are the things that often show us our inner truths. what are the little habits that creep out in the calm? we like to think we are the hero in the storm, but that ignores a bit part of us. really we are both the hero and the quiet one who hides from the sun.
we are both the emotional mess and the content calm. or, at least, we have the potential to be...if we just learn to sit and enjoy the small dots and the line we draw from each one.
and that isn't boring. that life is not boring at all.