Well, it’s nearly midnight and this day has been weirdly productive. Which is odd because lately I’ve been in a funk. I know! You couldn’t tell from the past couple of posts I’ve written, could you? 😀 (And thank you to those of you who have been brave enough to walk this journey with me. Brave, brave souls to enter my mire.) In fact, in such a funk that I spent my hour of Spiritual Direction on Monday in tears. Crying wasn’t cathartic as much as repetitive. I know this dreariness all too well.
What I came away with was that I am mourning my patterns. My old paths are so well traveled that I could traverse them without much care. I’m relieved to be done with some of these things; yet, I’m pattern-less at the moment. Because of it, I’m feeling ever so shapeless. Without form. And without form, without structure I’ve not been getting much done. Unless you count writing angst filled blog posts.
Yet, I’m not ready to replace the old patterns. It would be too easy to jump into something new, just for the sake of filling the gaps. Rebound jobs, careers, degrees sound about as pointless as rebound relationships.
Not all change is bad. But even good change is hard work. And we miss our old ways because they were easy. They don’t require of us what the newness does.  Auto-pilot and status quo can begin to feel like equilibrium…. Maybe it is sometimes. Then the newness breaks in and we feel shorn of our old ways, naked in paradise looking for cover. We don’t get to avoid this. I choose not to avoid this.
Transitions are holy ground. They are the space in which the Universe strips us of our old patterns and equips us for a whole new reality. If we are too eager for this new life, if we rush those transitions, then we risk being ill prepared for the change we face.
I don’t have to like being where I am. I do have to face it. So, I’m holding. Just holding. It’s a pattern of sorts, I guess. I’m hoping that in the silence of being still, in the unproductiveness of not doing, the Universe will take my formless being and shape my life once again.
But today was productive. What that means, specifically will have to wait for another post. Because, you know… I need to pace myself as I exit this funk and walk into the proverbial sunlight (as there is NO FREAKIN SUNLIGHT to be found in Oregon recently).
So, maybe the tears were cathartic afterall.
I will walk through this time with you as best I can as you hold. I have no expectations except to just be with you. What I’m sure of is that “Do You Know The Way to San Jose” won’t be playing forever… and “The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow”… bet your bottom dollar…
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I don’t know whether I should kiss you for the support or smack you for implanting cheesy elevator music in my head. Thanks for that. No, really. Thanks. Now, I’m off to do some Depeche Mode Therapy to erase those nasty sounds from my brain. Just for that, I’m going to sing really loudly with my headphones on. So loud you can hear in your office. Try getting that sound of your head! (you have bound my heart with subtle chains, so much pleasure that it feels like pain, so entwined that we can’t shake free, I am you, and you are me) ~ W
Depeche Mode … I knew you were cool. I could sense it all along. 🙂
I like patterns. I dislike change and think it should never happen – until it happens. Then I wonder why I struggled against it.
I will see IZ’s cheesy/happy Broadway tune and raise him a 70’s disaster film classic: There’s got to be a morning after … it’s waiting right outside the storm … why don’t we cross the bridge together …and find a place that’s safe and warm …
😀
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Wow, for a moment there, I was worried you and IZ had started a cheesy song lyric war in my comments. Whew! Glad that didn’t happen! 😀 ~WÂÂ
Control is a weird issue–we want it, but it’s often better to let life or whatever lead us. Did you get any snow? It’s a bit snowy here, and very cold. (but the sky is blue for now)
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Oh! Did we ever get snow. Easily a 5 snowman dump. (As we tend to measure snow by its building potential in these parts!) And thanks, Margaret. 😀 ~W
tanning beds? i don’t kow. i’m just trying to think of some coping meantimes that mght help you. i knit and watch ridiculous movies. yesterday i returned from the library with 5 books specifically requested to “get me out of my head and into a fantasy.” i don’t like being here either.
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I’m not really looking to divert the pain or “cope” through this. I’m ok with experiencing it. This isn’t depression but mourning. I’m disoriented, but that’s not the end of the world, it’s just the beginning of something new. In fact, for me, I think it’s really important to take the time and just sit with this and see what happens. It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever done that. ~W
I know that funk. Call me if you want a sounding board to try to gain the perspective that you are seeking.
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Thanks, sweetie! I just need some time to “sit with it”. It’s all good. ~W
Remember when Boy Wonder was, ahh, 9 months old? And a week would go by and he would be working,working,working on pulling himself up on the furniture and cruising and balancing and standing, all wobbly, in one place. And it was so exciting that you might not have noticed that his progress on picking up cheerios wasn’t going anywhere and he was back to palming them up on sticky paws? Then another week would go by where he would stand up but then just it down again but that week he found a couple of sounds that were words in the sense that they meant some one thing. Then he might catch a cold and nothing would happen except whining all day long and he stopped sleeping through the night for the next month.
It’s all about fits and starts, change is. And it’s progress is uneven so it often requires a “big picture” approach to even see it. And the older we are, the less striking and obvious it is, the more thoroughly engrained are old patterns.
When I saw couples in my office I would sometimes break the tension by saying something like, “Change is GOOD. You go first.”
I’m glad you had a good day today and felt the funk lifting. And glad you have Iz!
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Change is good, you go first… *smile!* You must have been really, really good at your job! Thanks for “listening”. ~W