I started rearranging the furniture in my room recently. It hadn’t been long since the last time I had done it, but that layout had gotten old fast. Most of my furniture can be moved with ease on my own. Everything except for my desk. A desk I’ve had since elementary school that is entirely too heavy even without anything on or in it. I moved my bed, an armchair, and some shelves into a nice setup they had never been before. I was so happy with how it looked. My next course of action would be to move my desk across the room, which my mom agreed to help with.
Before that could be done, we had dinner. There, my mom told my sister and I we’d be selling the house. This wasn’t a huge blow to me, as I had been suspecting this would happen sooner or later. Finances have been tough and I had already prepared myself for the idea of no longer having this house to go back to. Sure, selling the house that I have lived in for ten years would be tough, but I ultimately was relieved the decision was finally made. None of that broke me up. A thought occurred to me:
“What was the point of reorganizing my room then?”
For some reason, that simple thought crushed me. I returned to my room and since then I haven’t moved a thing. Furniture, unwashed laundry, and suitcases that still need to be unpacked from a recent vacation lie scattered across my rug. I love looking at the setup I was able to accomplish, but the rest of it feels pointless. I know it would make me happy in this very moment, but seeing as it would only be so fleeting, the furniture is left there to wait.
~
My sister and I recently took a trip to the beach with some old friends and their family that was in town. The third night we were there, some of us had set up a small bonfire in the sand. It was later at night, so by the time we were all comfortable, there was no one else there. There was a storm in the distance. Flashes of lightning could be seen out at sea, far enough away for the sound not to come to us. Typically, storms scare me horribly, to the point where looking out of the window feels like a death sentence. But with this storm, I was captivated by the light show far off in the distance. For the first time in my life, a storm felt beautiful.
My best friend and I both laid down on some towels and looked up at the stars. Space and the existential infinity of it all also scares me. But, that night, the stars were so beautiful. The best thing about the stars is that the more you look, the more you can start to see. The absolute vastness of everything beyond me pressed down hard on my shoulders and sent me sinking into the sand, and yet I felt strangely at peace. Life is so small that sometimes it feels crushing. But, sometimes, there are moments where that smallness shows that things can end up okay. My insignificance felt comforting, for once. Like if I could get through this extremely strange and traumatizing period of my life, it will end up being just a dot on my timeline. A dot that came and went.
The storm in the distance raged on, but it never reached the shore that night.
I had a therapy appointment the next morning. I had to force myself out of the peace I had worked so hard on establishing the night before in order to tell my therapist about what events had transpired that week that had made me angry and contributed to this dot in my timeline. The anger and fear of it all hit me all again at once, as if the stars truly collapsed in on me and forced me to no longer have this insignificance I could look at my problems with. It hit me that in order for this to be a dot in my timeline, I had to actually get through this moment in time. It wasn’t something I could currently look back on and reminisce about, it was something I actually had to work through to get to that reminiscing point.
That night, it stormed on the island for a little while. It did not last long, but the rain poured hard when it was there.
~
You’d think after going through years of therapy and months of the most upsetting points of my life, I’d have this whole “emotional balance” thing worked out. I find myself in a state of cruising, and not in a fun “cowabunga” type way but in the car way. I just keep going no matter the path until the friction ultimately stops me and I’m forced to start going again. This cruising isn’t entirely depressing, it is just a middle point between these highs and lows. Something great happens, then something awful happens, and then once I make a lame attempt at processing those emotions, my brain goes on cruise control and I don’t feel much about the things I have to deal with. I just go. Being in the middle of the best and worst moments of short bursts of time is emotionally daunting. Once the pattern of great to terrible ends, I start the cruise control portion of that time until the next “great” comes along and the cycle resets.
For example, I don’t feel terrible when I look out at my room and all the furniture scattered around my floor anymore. Sure, I don’t see much of a point in reorganizing anymore, but more so in the sense that it would be such a pain to move my desk. But, then again, the furniture really gets in the way of walking comfortably. It’s a weird middle place that feels stupid and unproductive but not emotionally taxing or scary. It is just static. An unchanging setting that is convenient for my laziness yet inconvenient for my need to walk around.
When I look back at that night where I was laying under the stars, I want to go back to that peace I felt. I hadn’t felt that level of clarity in ages. And yet, when it’s all said and done, having that anger resurface is okay, too. Hell, it can’t lie dormant forever. I’d love to live a life of bliss and ease, but that just isn’t the hand I’m dealt with right now. I am allowed to be scared and angry. After I let those feelings slip out, they wait in the back of my mind not to fester, but to just sit. I don’t feel happy about my situation, but I can at least coast until the next roadblock hits. Not in a good or bad way. Just in a life way.
When all is said and done, I’m not sure this cycle of great, awful, and coasting is healthy or not. But I’ve been so immersed in this pattern that it feels like it runs my life.
In the middle of it all, I just wait until the pattern resets. I just wait.
Featured image thanks to Jake Weirick on Unsplash.
